League of Legends Season 14 is set to launch over the next couple of days, and for the first time in years I am finally excited to jump in and start playing when it kicks off thanks to a new release schedule and some impactful changes.
The season 14 patch is set to bring with it some massive changes to League of Legends, from new monsters to total reworks of old systems and a lot of quality-of-life improvements. It looks to be one of the bigger new season patches of recent years that every player will feel from the first game they play, but that isn’t the main reason my excitement levels have increased this year.
In previous years a new season, which always kicks off in early January, was preceded by pre-season, which would typically launch in the latter stages of the previous year. It would feature all of the major changes coming in the new season and be put onto live servers for everyone to play, with the caveat that the dev team might still make some smaller changes based on player feedback.
For me, this totally killed all the hype surrounding a new season. When pre-season launched it felt like it was time for a break from LoL. The pro season was over, ranked play was turned off and a lot of players who grind ranked all year wouldn’t take things too seriously in unranked, meaning your first experience of the cool new update might feature a troll or two.
But this year things are different. Pre-season is gone, and while the new season update has been available on the PBE, only the most hardcore players turn to that to get their fix. Now, almost everyone will experience the new season at the same time with ranked turned on, and that could lead to chaos.
People will be trying to figure out this massive new patch over the coming days and that should lead to some of the most chaotic LoL matches I’ve ever played, and that will be great fun. Providing the serves hold up to what will likely be a massive influx of returning players, the next few days could be some of the most fun you have in LoL all year.
Of course that is before you even look at the new changes. With a new map to figure out and new monsters to kill League of Legends will likely feel very different compared to last year. Add in the reworked mythic item system and your freedom to build whatever items you want increases a ton to give you even more to think about. On top of that there’s also a ton of balance changes for champions to dissect. It might take some getting used to, but I, for one, am excited to jump in and start playing League of Legends season 14 as soon as it launches later this week.
