League of Legends 2023 roadmap: new champs, new reworks, and huge ranked changes
It's a big year for League. Here's what the year has in store.
Details on the League of Legends 2023 season have just been revealed, giving players of the popular Riot Games MOBA their first look into what the next year has in store for them.
It’s looking like a packed twelve months, with a feast of champion updates, new champion releases, colourful new skin lines and a drastic new change to the ranked system to sink their teeth into.
Below, we’ve broken down each of the major updates coming in the LoL 2023 season into their own section, so you can quickly jump to what piques your interest.
New League champions and reworks in 2023
There will be two new champions releasing in 2023: Milio and Naafiri.
Milio — an enchanter champion from Ixhtal —will be releasing first, with Darkin mid lane assassin Naafiri coming later in the year. Wwe don’t know much about these champions quite yet, but we do have some teaser art that hints towards their aesthetic.
Aside from the two new characters joining the League of Legends cast, there are loads of champion updates planned for this year too! Over the weekend, information and footage of both the Ahri and Aurelion Sol updates were shown off. Ahri will be receiving a full visual upgrade to her abilities and skins, while Aurelion SOl is getting a top-to-bottom kit rework, now able to crash stars and shoot lasers at enemy champions.
But there’s more. Skarner’s VGU update that has been teased over the past few months is still in the works, and we’re due to see work on League’s favourite scorpion bear fruit with a dedicated dev diary later this year. To tide us over, we’ve been given more concept art giving us some ideas to the direction the team is taking the champion in.
We also got a sneak peak at a Nico update, showing the trickster disguising herself as interactables like blast cones. She’ll also apparently be able to disguise herself as minions and wards, which is sure to make me tear my hair out when freezing lanes on my own.
Nidalee and Varus are lined up to get small updates this year too, slight tweaks to their kit, to improve their performance, but nothing too major.
Two more champions — an unamed jungler and mid laner — are also due updates soon, but there were no details shared on those at this time. Ultimately, the team expressed their desire to hit roughly one mid-scope update to a champion every two months. That timing isn’t concrete due to the variable amount of work that goes into each rework, but it should give an idea of what to expect going forward.
Also, don’t expect another vote for future updates this year. As Riot hasn’t reached the bottom of the last community vote, they’ve opted to dodge doing another one until they clear out those last requests.
2023 League skins
There are a large spread of new skins, including totally fresh skin lines and additions to prior favourites, planned for 2023. You can find the schedule skin releases for season 13.1 and 13.2 listed below:
- Lunar Empress Ashe
- Lunar Guardian Kha’Zix
- Lunar Empress Qiyana
- Lunar Guardian Malphite
- Lunar Emperor Thresh
- Mythmaker Galio
- Mythmaker Garen
- Mythmaker Irelia (legendary skin)
- Mythmaker Sivir
- Mythmaker Zyra
- Prestige Mythmaker Sivir
- Prestige Porcelain Lissandra
2023 League ranked changes
Perhaps the biggest changes to solo queue goblins out there are the massive changes coming to ranked play in 2023. For one, the season is being cut in half, with the fll year now made up of two splits each with their own rank attached.
This was made to try and make the ranked season more engaging. According to executive producer Jeremy Lee during the press briefing on the changes, this one done in an attempt to curb players taking long breaks from ranked once they hit their goals, playing only to prevent ranked decay or jumping on a smurf.
In addition, you’ll no longer have to reach gold to earn a prestige skin for the ranked split. This means that players of any rank will be able to take home the prize, however it was emphasised that the requirements to earn the prestige skin below gold will take a lot of work. Basically, you have to be grinding hard but remain hardstuck silver or bronze to get the skin.
It was also noted that while champion rework community votes were off the table this year, votes for new skins is something they haven’t totally shut down as of yet.
That concludes our round up of the League of Legends 2023 roadmap. Which part of the season are you most excited about? Let us know below!