It’s now officially the League of Legends off-season, not just because Worlds ended nearly a month ago, but because Arcane has come to an end as well. So, Riot Games is onto its next big thing, which happens to be the 2025 season update for League of Legends. All the details of the game’s next big update were revealed in a video on Monday morning, including its new themed season and a new epic jungle monster.
The first big update is that League will now feature three seasons a year with stronger, more clearly identifiable themes than it’s ever had before. Each season will last about 16 weeks, and include its own battle pass. Most of the cosmetics released in a given theme will match its aesthetic, but Riot has been clear that this doesn’t mean the end of funny skins or silly skin lines completely.
The first season will be themed after Noxus, the land Ambessa calls home, that’s full of powerful warlords and soldiers. Summoner’s Rift will be getting a visual update to better fit the theme, including new turrets and other small flourishes. On top of that, there are also new Noxus-themed boot upgrades that will be available to teams who complete certain objectives each game like first tower, first blood, and first three epic monsters killed.
The biggest change of 2025 season 1, however, is definitely the new epic jungle monster: Atakhan. This Noxian demon spawns exactly once a game at the 20-minute mark, but he’ll do it slightly differently depending on what’s happened in the game so far. In particularly bloody games, Atakhan will spawn in his Ruinous form and grant the team that defeats him a stats bonus in the form of a field of flowers they can pick up after he’s gone. In a less bloody game, Atakhan will spawn in his Veracious form and grant the defeating team a single-use Guardian Angel buff that will return them to life if they die. Where Atakhan spawns is variable too; it will always be in the river, but whether it’s on top side or bottom side will depend on which side has seen more champions’ deaths in the game at 14 minutes.
This should be a pretty major shake-up that the developers hope will create more interaction in low kills games, and shake up League matches in general to create more variety game to game.
The new season will also include plenty of other, more expected changes, like a couple of new items and a few new runes. Teleport is also getting nerfed, with a much slower travel time for players trying to zip across the map. Meanwhile, there are also slightly bigger changes, like respawning Nexus towers, which will make stealthy back doors to win the game much harder than they were before. Also, to better fit in with his Arcane counterpart, Viktor is getting a visual gameplay update, which should make him look a little less dated.
For a full rundown of all the changes coming to League of Legends in its first season of 2025, you can check out the rest of Riot’s video.