Riot Says League of Legends Will Stop Getting New Champions Soon

There will come a time when League of Legends will have a cap on the number of champions.

At the time of this writing, League of Legends now has 161 champions—and the list keeps growing. Ever Since Riot Games started rolling out new champions to the MOBA like a madman, players with LoL accounts have been calling for the company to slow down or stop the releases altogether for a while. Since each champion forces players to adapt and get to know another layer of the game’s complexity, it’s easy to feel like there’s too much going on in the Summoner’s Rift.

Unbeknownst to League account owners, there’s been discussions about this topic behind the curtains—at least that’s what Matt ‘Phroxzon’ Leung-Harrison, a developer for League of Legends, had to say in the Broken by Concept podcast. Phroxzon revealed that the LoL team was already thinking about an “end” moment where the champion pool would completely halt. There’s no definite figure for this yet, though, as Riot Games is still far from being done experimenting with League of Legends.

An Unavoidable Decision

Every new champion Riot cranks out has some new mechanic that keeps players on their toes and adds another layer of twist to the game. For a newbie or a veteran returning to League of Legends after a hiatus, all the additions and items/map reworks present a steep learning curve.

On the recent Broken by Concept podcast, Lead Designer Matt “Phroxzon” Leung-Harrison hinted that there would come a time when the development team would stop adding new champions to League of Legends. This avoids making players feel like they’re drowning in an endless, confusing, and unintuitive champion pool.

The consensus of the LoL community was mixed for the most part; some were shocked about it, while others thought that it was an inevitable but sensible decision that ought to maintain the thrill that League of Legends possesses.

Phroxzon further states that if they were to continue making new but unintuitive champions, it would make things harder for the players to enjoy the game. The current roster of 161 champions is already enough to choke a mule—that’s a ton of information to expect the average gamer to consume without trouble.

A Prime Example of Unintuitiveness

So far, Riot has done a stellar job at keeping information easily digestible for their players—being familiar with every skill shot, ability, and item effects isn’t easy, especially when you have 161 champions to think about. But that doesn’t mean that the company is perfect. One example that Phroxzon mentioned that he considered a flop for the dev team was Gwen.

The core of Gwen’s kit was based around an ability that was a “difficult visualization challenge.” As a result, the newer players that had just started playing League of Legends had difficulty identifying Gwen’s moves. The VFX, the animations, the champion designer, and even the sound guys tried to put their heads together to make Gwen “work”; unfortunately, it was way too challenging to get a “perfect solve” for the champ with unique mechanics.

At the very least, Gwen’s release changed how Riot sees the process of creating champions. This led to uniqueness being less of a priority and more of an “aspiration value,” according to Phroxzon. As a result, players can expect new champions to only slightly vary from LoL’s previous releases instead of filling an entirely new niche (take Nilah, for example).

When Will Riot Games Stop Making Champions?

Whether you love or hate it, the max cap for the League of Legends roster isn’t coming anytime soon. Phroxzon commented that they’ve “still got a lot of flex to go.” In fact, the development team is more than eager now to design new characters for the MOBA. They firmly believed that part of the addiction and fun that comes with playing League is its never-ending learning curve; it’s what makes players come back to the game again and again.

While Phroxzon revealed that they’re already thinking about the “end,” there’s no definitive date or figure for when that’ll happen. It’s safe to say that they won’t be going out of commission until Riot Games runs out of ideas or gets enough backlash to make them stop putting out new champions. And even if they did, the players with LoL accounts still have much to explore in the 13-year-old MOBA.