Whether you’re battling waves of enemies in Swarm, celebrating Pengu’s Party by blending old comps with new, or grinding for that elusive Arena God title, game modes can take a lot of different forms.
We can juice up the main game like in URF or bring League champions to an entirely new genre like auto-battlers or bullet heaven. With a busy year of game modes well underway, we wanted to talk a bit about Swarm, how some of our game teams are thinking about modes, and the impact they have for players and devs.
New, Novel, and (Hopefully) a Lot of Fun
“A value of game modes is that they create different ways to experience League of Legends,” said August “Riot August” Browning, Design Lead on Swarm. “Some players are ranked grinders, other players love ARAM, and another group will prefer normals. League has this large and diverse player base and modes are a great way to serve players who want different types of experiences.”
Over League’s 15 year history, we’ve had modes featuring everything from snowballs to Star Guardians. But a few years ago the creation of new modes in League slowed down.
“Before we released Arena in 2023, we saw what our ecosystem looks like when we’re not injecting new, novel experiences for players,” said Eduardo “Riot Cadmus” Cortejoso, the Product Lead for Game Modes in League. “Players told us loud and clear that they were missing modes. During that time we saw the need to provide new maps and gameplay spaces, to create experiences with unique hooks and rule sets that don’t exist in League today. That’s led us to investing in Arena with its small maps and creating Swarm, which is a whole new genre with a different control scheme.”
Arena’s updated map after spending some time in the lab
“We look at game modes and we see a way for safe experimentation to push the envelope for what it means to have fun in the League ecosystem,” added Sope “Riot Sopebox” May, Product Lead on Swarm. “While we’re not saying we’re going to be pushing out R&D type games as foundations for modes, we are looking at ways we can keep improving modes over time. You see that with Arena right now—we sent it out, saw where players wanted to engage with the mode, then brought it back to the lab. Our goal is to get it to that point where it’s sustainable long term.”
When we’re thinking of experimentation for League, we’re envisioning more of Heimerdinger’s measured risks and less of Singed’s mad laboratory. As we release more modes, they also help us better understand what players want out of a League experience.
Learning As We Go
League was first released as a hyper-competitive game and will always have that option for players who want to be the best of the best. But League now has a much more diverse player base than what we initially conceived—and it was a mode that helped drive that learning home.
“Way back in League’s first few years, we learned a ton from ARAM,” August said. “ARAM showed us there’s a desire to play a League-like experience but not on Summoner’s Rift, and not in a super competitive setting. It helped show that there’s a wide range of how players want to engage with this game, whether it's ARAM, normals, ranked, or even spamming spells in URF.”
Now League's been around for 15 years and ARAM has been a permanent fixture for 11 of them. For our younger games, like Wild Rift, which is going on year four, the team has looked towards modes to help better understand the game’s core audiences.
“Game modes are important for two main reasons,” said Yunfei “Riot Vegetabird” Fei, a Product Manager on Wild Rift who worked on the Ruination mode earlier this year. “One, they make a game feel alive with new content. And two, a game mode is a really great place to test out big changes. If we are thinking about altering something in Summoners Rift or if we want to switch up the core gameplay, we can test the impact of those changes in a low-stakes game mode. That way we can figure out if this is a change we want to make to the game as a whole and we have more info on how it should be implemented."
Phantom of the Shadow Isles - Kalista took center stage with Wild Rift’s Ruination event
This summer, Wild Rift features a mode which brings Arena’s augments into ARAM. The team wants to see what the power level of augments looks like in a 5v5 setting compared to the 2v2 of Arena. The hypothesis: More pentas = more fun?
Whether they are teaching us more about the core gameplay loop or standing on their own two feet permanently, game modes have a lot of value to the dev experience.
“TFT was originally a game mode,” said Christina “Riot Xtna” Jiang, Senior Product Manager on Teamfight Tactics. “We just celebrated our five-year anniversary thanks to all the players who have played over the past few years. When we reached the point where TFT began having game modes of its own, that felt like a major milestone.”
Around the five-year anniversary, the team has released a couple of game modes. First was Choncc’s Treasure, giving players a real shot at seeing Sett squat the entire board once he’s been three-starred. After that, it was time to take a trip down memory lane with Pengu’s Party, where old favorite traits blended into Inkborn Fables’ meta.
So much cake even Choncc couldn’t get through it all
“With Pengu’s Party, we wanted to make sure players have the gold and items they need to pivot to new comps based on the anniversary traits you pick,” Xtna said. “We replaced standard monsters with Cupcakes and a Party Crab to provide that loot for players so they can enjoy the anniversary with plenty of gold on hand.”
These types of high-roll-friendly modes reflect how many TFT players like to enjoy the game while also leaving room for the additional strategy that comes with more constrained budgets in the ranked queue. At the same time, they help support TFT’s three sets per year model, which allows the dev team to work ahead of the curve.
“As TFT has evolved, the constant has been TFT players' desire for new content,” Xtna said. “That's why we changed to three sets per year and why we’re investing in events to deliver more new and novel experiences to players during each set. This constant evolution is one of the things TFT does best and is what players want when they queue up for a game.”
While TFT certainly shows the value modes can bring to players, we certainly don’t expect every mode to become a leader in its genre. But, hey, if it happens, it happens.
The Balance Between PvP and PvE
Generally game modes can be split into two main types of experiences—and they both have value depending on the goal you want to accomplish.
On one hand, there are the purely PvE storytelling modes like the Spirit of Hearth-Home, which introduced Aurora through point-and-click puzzles in Ornn’s workshop, and Wild Rift’s recent Ruination adventure, where players battled through Kalista’s story. These modes help bring the world of Runeterra to life, but with all PvE modes, you’ll reach a cap on what the experience offers.
Ornn isn’t as grouchy as he looks (okay, maybe he is)
“PvE is ultimately finite replayability, there’s only so many enemies to code and story to tell,” Sopebox said. “PvP is where you get into that more infinite replayability. You can’t compare replayability metrics of something like League to a game like God of War, they’re two fully different experiences but both great in their own right.”
“When we think about a new game mode, it all depends on who the target is,” Cadmus explains. “Not all game modes are designed to support a super long engagement cycle and when they are, we design with that in mind. Arena is a great example of something recent that is aimed at being infinitely replayable which is why you’ve seen it come back again this year.”
At the same time, Spirit of Hearth-Home was designed to be a unique experience for a few hours and deepen the lore around a new champion and an older one. Both Arena and Hearth-Home accomplished their goals. When it comes to hours played and replayability, Swarm sits somewhere in the middle of those two modes.
“We thought a lot about replayability for Swarm,” August said. “We definitely wanted something that you could play for hours and still have plenty to come back to complete. But at the end of the day, Swarm is designed to be, to some degree, completable. If you play it consistently, you’ll get through all the levels, you’ll get through all the achievements, and you’ll kinda be done. But if it's a great 10-20 hours, that's okay. And if players really like this mode, there’s a lot we can do to increase replayability in a future version of it.”
Bullet Heaven Meets Anima Squad
Swarm’s been live for a little while now, and while many of you have already taken the Anima Squad on some missions, we won’t spoil everything the mode offers here. But the simple summary is: Co-op + PvE + Anima Squad + bullet heaven.
“If you’re a big fan of the survival bullet heaven genre or just looking for another way to play League with friends, this mode is for you,” August said. “If you’ve imagined what it would be like playing a League of Legends champion in a game like that, well, now you can. That’s the beauty of modes, they let you create unique experiences for players that can be so different from League’s core gameplay. They also provide more ways for players to play with friends. If your friend group is split on the ranked / ARAM / normals preference, Swarm gives people a new way to experience League together.”
Swarm aims to have something for everyone who enjoys League—and even people that haven’t picked up the game in years. It sets the Anima Squad into four new maps to play out a story with added difficulty levels aimed to challenge longtime bullet heaven players. But at its core, Swarm is about providing a more casual way to enjoy the League universe with friends during our summer Anima Squad event.
“Not only is it providing that more low stakes, co-op way to engage with League of Legends, it’s about making this summer event really shine,” Cadmus added. “It’s designed to be something like Odyssey or Star Guardian Invasion—these are moments that players remember for years. We want Swarm to be that same type of high-touch moment for players.”
We’re happy with where Arena and Swarm landed and the possibilities they open up for the future. At the same time, we’re still Heimerdingering away creating future experiences that aim to be new, novel, and (hopefully) fun.
