LoL Dev Video: What’s Coming in the New 2026 Season – Items, Role Quests, Faster Gameplay, and More

Riot Games have released the final Dev Update Video of the year, outlining what players can expect at the start of 2026. The team is preparing major gameplay changes, and the first versions are already available on the PBE. Since testing is still ongoing, visuals and item stats will continue to shift until Patch 26.1 launches in January.

The main focus of the season is to bring back strategic variety and reduce the game’s reliance on constant teamfights around neutral objectives. Riot aim to strengthen the value of split pressure, sieging, and individual decision-making, while also balancing the impact of each role and simplifying parts of the early game. And of course, the biggest gameplay-changing addition is the introduction of role-specific quests. But one step at a time - let’s break everything down.

Main Goals for LoL Season 2026

Credit: League of Legends Youtube

In 2026, Riot decided to address one of the most overloaded parts of the game: the objective system. The biggest step is the complete removal of Atahan, who created far too many mandatory activities. Blood Roses and Petals disappear along with him, and Baron will once again spawn at the 20-minute mark. Riot are also removing Triumph of Power – an interesting idea, but one that cluttered the game. In its place, classic bonuses return: 100 gold for First Blood and 300 gold for the first turret destroyed.

With Atahan and Triumph of Power gone, the team shifted focus to epic monsters. They’re being made 15% tankier, and Dragon’s Wrath will now scale based on the team’s draconic bonuses. Most epic monsters will give less gold, but their key effects are strengthened: Void Grubs and Rift Herald gain more impact, while dragons and Baron become significantly more valuable. This should give losing teams more comeback potential if they manage to steal or sneak an objective.

Epic monsters will also scale differently: from now on, their stats grow with champion levels rather than game time. This change keeps their power consistent across modes and makes practice tools more reliable for training real-game scenarios.

Overall, the changes look solid and fairly balanced. Though, it’s a bit sad to see Atahan go – so many moments in the 2025 season happened because of him, and many teams and players fell fighting near his pit. But given Riot’s plans for Season 2026, his removal looks like the most logical outcome.

Time to Play – Faster Early Game

Starting in January, the early game will become noticeably faster. Riot are accelerating the opening phase by 36 seconds: minions will now spawn at 30 seconds instead of 65. Epic and regular jungle camps, including Raptors and Scuttle Crab, will also appear roughly half a minute earlier. As a result, players won’t have to wait under their turret for the lane to begin – the action starts almost immediately.

You’ll still have the option to invade the enemy jungle or catch an isolated jungler, but the window for making that decision will be much shorter.

League of Legends 2026: Role Quests

The most significant addition of 2026 is the introduction of role quests. This is arguably the biggest and most impactful change of the entire patch, important enough to deserve its own detailed breakdown in a separate blog. For now, here’s a short explanation.

At the start of the year, top, mid, and bot will receive their own unique quests, similar in concept to jungle pet evolutions or support item upgrades. To complete them, players simply need to do what they already do on their lanes: last-hit minions, pressure turrets, participate in kills, and work with objectives. These quests usually finish around the same timing as support item upgrades do today.

The goal is to give every lane a clear, unique way to influence the game and to strengthen roles that currently lag behind, especially top and bot.

• Top lane receives bonus experience, an increased XP cap, and a free Teleport with a longer cooldown. If the player already has Teleport, it becomes stronger and grants a shield scaling with max health.
• Mid lane gets free Tier-3 boots and a new rechargeable Recall-like ability with a 4-second channel time. The boots are slightly changed but similar to those once tied to Triumph of Power.
• Bot lane receives a one-time gold reward and increased income from minion kills, champion takedowns, and assists for the rest of the match. A new seventh item slot appears – boots move into it, freeing space for an additional legendary item. This allows ADCs to hit the late game with a true seventh slot or at least store incomplete components like Zeal or Cloak of Agility. Base critical strike damage also returns to 200%.

Junglers and supports already have well-developed quest systems, but they’re getting slight adjustments as well.

• Jungle will have reduced early-game impact, but still keeps pet upgrades and the ability to Smite champions. After finishing the quest, junglers gain more gold and XP from large monsters and additional movement speed in the jungle. Monsters are now tankier and Smite deals more damage to reduce long-range steals from abilities.
• Support receives ease-of-use improvements: a new slot for control wards, a discount on control wards, and a small passive gold income so they can afford something beyond just Redemption.

Overall, the quest system is designed to highlight each role’s strengths, give every position clear scaling paths, and ensure meaningful impact all the way to the end of the match. Thanks to this system, Riot can finally remove the lane-swap mechanic that caused issues since the moment it appeared.

Vision Update in the New League Season

Riot have decided to strengthen the impact of wards for solo-lane champions, especially those playing on side lanes in the late game. The goal is simple: make vision easier to learn and more accessible not only for supports but for other roles as well. Now, gaining vision provides immediate, meaningful value for the entire team.

Credit: League of Legends Youtube

The main addition is the introduction of special warding spots that grant an increased vision radius. Their locations are fixed: some are available from the start of the game, while others activate after the elemental rift transformation. In certain areas, controlling vision becomes easier, but the extended-vision duration is limited, and safe routes remain available for junglers and roaming champions.

Yellow trinket cooldowns have also been shortened to make them more reliable, and several new Scryer’s Bloom plants have been added. These changes should help teams safely leave their base when behind or better support side-lane split pushing in the late game.

Personally, I think this is a great step forward. I always felt that standard wards in League provided too little information. Now they’ll offer much more value, and I’m sure support players especially will be happy with this update.

Splitpush Strategy Changes

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Riot note that splitpushing and sieging have long fallen behind full-team skirmishes in terms of effectiveness, and in 2026 they want to restore their importance. Improved vision and the removal of Atahan already support this direction, but the key new mechanic is Crystal Bloom. Turrets will now occasionally gain an effect that, when hit, allows players to deal extra damage to the structure, giving any champion a chance to push effectively at the right moment. The Demolish rune is also being simplified: it now activates after three consecutive hits on a turret.

Permanent map-pressure rewards have also been updated: players will earn gold for each chunk of health removed from inner and inhibitor turrets. Pathfinding bonuses from Militia have been improved as well – the movement speed buff now lasts until you reach the outer turret, and in the late game, it extends all the way to the furthest minion as long as you stay on the lane.

Turret mechanics are being streamlined: melee champions now deal 20% more turret damage, turret health has been increased proportionally, inner turrets no longer regenerate resistances after 15 minutes, and outer turrets won’t receive excessive bonus attack damage later in the game.

Minions will spawn more frequently in the late stages. After laning phase, waves appear every 25 seconds, with one fewer melee minion in cannon waves. Closer to late game, waves spawn every 20 seconds, each containing one fewer caster minion. Inhibitor lanes immediately receive super minions, making base defense more intense.

Credit: League of Legends Youtube

And one final key update: Nexus turrets will still regenerate after being destroyed, but now only up to 40% health, preventing easy backdoors while still making turret destruction meaningful.

Items

In 2026, Riot are expanding the item system and adding options for subclasses that previously lacked proper support. A total of nine new items are being introduced (with temporary names for now), along with the return of Hextech Gunblade and Stormrazor. Riot expect that almost every champion will find at least one item that fits their playstyle.

Items coming next season and their uses:

• Bludgeoning Scepter – a Sheen-style item for AP bruisers. Doubles on-hit effects, empowering champions like Diana or Gwen.
• Emblem of Absoluteness – for marksmen who play around their ultimate. Grants ultimate haste, temporary attack speed, and lets your next three autos crit or deal bonus true damage after using your ult.
• Blood Sphere – an AD item with omnivamp. Provides tenacity and movement speed scaling with bonus AD, improving survivability for light fighters after takedowns in teamfights.
• Assassin’s Finisher Item – helps close out games. After participating in a kill, your next attack on an epic monster or turret deals massive lethality-scaling damage. Occasionally empowers abilities with extra true damage.
• Manaonomicon – the first active-item for mages in a long time. Activating it puts you into an empowered state, consuming more mana but granting stronger abilities, faster cooldowns, and scaling for damage, shielding, and healing based on max mana.
• Snowbow – a long-range marksman item. Increases AD based on how far your target was during a takedown and grants bonus attack range for teamfights.
• Enhanced Engine – an aura-based item for durable melee supports. The aura activates after you slow or CC an enemy, and lasts longer for melee champions.
• Mantle of the Twelfth Hour – a tank item with a Lifeline-like effect. Heals when at low HP and grants movement speed and tenacity, scaling with armor and MR.
• Savior’s Mana Bell/ Superbell – an upgradeable support-mage item. The base version increases shield/heal strength based on mana, while Superbell with full stacks heals the nearest ally every second during combat with enemy champions.
• Hextech Gunblade – returns with AP, AD, vamp effects, and an active that deals damage and slows.
• Stormrazor – the classic crit item returns, offering AD, crit chance, attack speed, and Energized damage plus movement speed.

This is a major update that will greatly expand build variety and bring many forgotten champions back into the meta. It will undoubtedly impact both solo queue and competitive play. I expect we’ll see fresh ideas and a completely new meta once the winter splits begin.