Arena is a League of Legends game mode where players duel in a 2v2v2v2 setup. The game mode was introduced on July 20th, 2023 and ended its first run on August 28th, 2023 in patch 13.14 in tandem with the Soul Fighter event. Almost year later, the developers on that game mode announced many tweaks within a dev blog post, along with the hopes that Arena could one day be a permanent game similar to ARAM or Quickplay.
The changes are as such: the size of the Arena will be doubled. Instead of a 2v2v2v2 (8 players), Arena will run with 16 players total, making 8 teams of 2 players each. This lessens repetitiveness within the game mode, and allows for more nuance with team comps and strategies. The UI will change to reflect the larger lobby size, among other quality-of-life upgrades such as a tab scoreboard and highlighting the team the player is currently up against.
A new item tier called Prismatic, named consistently with the tier introduced in Riot’s Teamfight Tactics a while ago, will be introduced. These items will fundamentally change what may be unorthodox, unattainable builds for champions into slightly more attainable builds for champions.
Prismatics are obtained by Anvils, which are purchasable consumables that gift the player 3 randomized items through a set category. Rerolling is shared with augment selections. Anvils are sorted into Prismatic (items), Legendary (items within the player’s selected category of classes), and Stats (raw stat upgrades, such as +10% attack damage).
Along with game design tweaks, there are new map additions to allow more room for players.
There is an experimental ranking system the developers are running, where players can queue with premades up to 8 players or a full 16 premade team (in which case, MMR or ranking will not change).
According to the developer’s log, the next re-release of this game mode should be around May 1st and would last longer than its first run. This allows the developers to gain more data and understand playing trends.