Riot dives into future of LoL Arena and Swarm—and explains why they won’t be permanent modes

Arena and Swarm have been massively successful endeavors in League of Legends, becoming some of the most played non-Summoner’s Rift game modes. However, as things stand, neither can become permanent additions, and Riot Games thinks that’s for the best.

Riot clarified its decision to make Arena and Swarm rotating modes and had a whole lot more to say in a Sept. 23 dev diary focusing on the future of the two modes. In it, Riot’s devs elaborated on the incredible success Arena had initially, but also how it saw significant losses in terms of player count after the first two months. “Arena performed very well for the first two months of its run, but then engagement started to dip significantly,” the devs said, adding, “We believe this is due to a lack of novelty and progression systems that would keep Arena players coming back.”

Some things landed, others didn’t, and Riot said this need to introduce new (and good!) content time and again to keep players returning is ultimately what led to the mode becoming a rotating one. “Arena, as it exists today, would need pretty regular injections of big updates for players to consider re-investing their time in the mode,” the devs explained. But what about Swarm? Well, it also did well, more than well as Riot puts it, and allowed the devs to take the game into a new genre and experience that players seemed to enjoy. However, good progression and new content remained necessities to keep the mode fresh and exciting, as well as giving players an incentive to come back to it.

So, given how the modes need new stuff to be sustainable, Riot’s made the decision to send them into the rotation and bring them back once they’re updated with additional content and exciting spins on gameplay.

Rotating game modes will also continue to be a core part of the League of Legends repertoire, with the developers aiming to release a full rotating game mode roadmap for 2025.