Riot Games Rolls Back Highly Controversial League of Legends Changes in Latest Dev Vlog

League of Legends' Riot Games has been no stranger to controversy recently. With the recent release of their gacha system, named Sanctum, which introduced Exalted-level skins with pseudo-gambling elements tied in, it became the first of many changes that the company would bring, hurting their reputation in the process.

Everyone must know by now, but a while back, Riot Games retired the free-to-play progression system known as the Hextech Chests, which gave players the opportunity to acquire some skins for free whilst showing their loyalty to the game. In the dev vlog at the time, the team mentioned it had led to a majority of players unlocking significant portions of skins, which was mentioned as an "unsustainable business practice" in the long term.

The removal of Hextech Chests led to a community-wide outrage: content creators touched on the topic, memes were created, and it has been mentioned in every single post made by Riot Games since then. The shared movement led to a rollback, though this comes with a few changes and caveats, too.

The dev vlog talks about the changes to the Hextech Chest system, which, instead of being tied in with the Mastery system, is done through the seasonal Battle Pass. Instead of requiring to play champions X amount of times or getting Y scores on them, this new system is meant to ensure that players who enjoy all random or play a wide variety of champions can still benefit.

Eight chests are going to be scattered across the 50 levels available to unlock, with keys to boot, to ensure that you can continue enjoying a bit of random skin acquisition. Of course, these chests will be replacing a fair few things throughout the Battle Pass, and we got a bit more specifics about the Act 2 Battle Pass after these new changes are being implemented.

Notably, the Hextech Chest + Key is going to be available in pass level 3, 15, 20, 23, 31, 36, 42, and 45. The following items are being replaced in favour of the Hextech Chest + Key approach:

• Random Icon
• Seasonal Champion Skin Emote
• Free Seasonal Champion Skin
• Mystery Icon
• Seasonal Champion Skin + Border
• 4000 Blue Essence
• Mystery Emote
• Mystery Epic or Lower Skin

As noted, a fair few of the Seasonal Champion Skins are being changed from the Battle Pass. All of the Hextech Chests are going to be free acquisitions, which leads to an overall higher amount (or chance) of skins throughout any given season.

Finally, Hextech Chests aren't onlybeing incorporated into the Battle Pass system. Two more chests will be tied to the Honor rewards that Riot Games is trying to refine, totalling the amount of Hextech Chests you can get per act to 10, and the total amount of Hextech Chests you can acquire throughout the year to 60.