It’s been a hectic year so far for Riot Games and its various developer teams, with the company releasing and maintaining multiple titles that have become extremely popular over the course of 2021. Luckily for these hard-working individuals, they’ll be getting a week-long break to relax and take a step back from their computers starting on Monday, Aug. 2.
For any fans of Riot’s titles, this also means that patch deadlines for some games have been shifted to compensate for this break. Teams will be staggering their breaks to make sure that there aren’t any major interruptions that could affect the player base. League of Legends Patch 11.16, for example, is set to release on Wednesday, Aug. 11, three weeks after the last update.
This mid-year break tradition began last year when Riot took a break in August to allow all of its employees to disconnect, recharge, and prepare for the rest of the year. It was a huge success, which prompted the company to hold the break once again. This came after 2020 brought a ton of new challenges for the teams behind Riot, including the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the release of multiple big-name games like VALORANT and Legends of Runeterra.
“2020 taught us a lot about how we work,” Riot said in its announcement. “Amid shipping new games, navigating the pandemic, and hiring lots of new Rioters, we had the opportunity to experiment not only with how we deliver experiences to players, but how we take time for rest, inspiration, and all the essential non-work things that give us the energy to create better products.”
It’s a great choice for a company that’s started to branch out and create more games and experiences for its dedicated players. The amount of work needed to deliver such great products should warrant some downtime for its employees to relax, especially with most of the games constantly evolving and changing through the many patches in a year.
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