League Of Legends Experimenting With New Nexus Blitz Mode

Riot Games has announced that they're experimenting with a new mode, called Nexus Blitz, for their ultra-popular MOBA League of Legends. Nexus Blitz is a faster experience for players looking to jump in for a short bit of League without committing to a longer match.

"In Nexus Blitz, each team consists of a duo jungle in close proximity to three laners," Riot said in a blog post introducing the mode. "The compact map makes for constant action, and a roulette of new, unexpected events amplifies the frenzy even more. Events are map-wide, mayhem-inducing scenarios that kick off every few minutes, granting powerful rewards to the team that wins. Some events draw from familiar game experiences that many players will instantly get, and others are more unexpected. Both kinds should make for unpredictable and memorable plays and fights: examples include King of the Hill, Push the Payload, the closing circle of death from Battle Royale games, and so on."

Winning events gets your team buffs, like cannons for your base or massive shields for your entire team. If they take the mode past the experimental phase, they'll start taking suggestions on the event system to better tune it for balance and fun.

Riot added that Nexus Blitz also has another major mechanic. "Champs who go on hotstreaks—getting takedowns without dying yourself—go on fire, gaining adaptive damage and shorter cooldowns, but also taking more damage and they’re worth a TON of gold to shut down."

Nexus Blitz goes live in 8.16 and will continue for about four weeks. Riot is soliciting all feedback they can possibly get in those four weeks so they can decide whether the game will move past the pre-alpha phase and tune it to possibly end up in the main game one day.

 

There's definitely a market for a shorter, flashier MOBA experience, as things like Dota 2 Turbo have proven. It'll be interesting to see if this goes further than just the single month it's planned for and how the community will react to it.