Riot walks back unpopular League of Legends changes: Hextech Chests are coming back, and the Blue Essence cost for new champions will be cut in half

Riot Games says recent changes to League of Legends' reward system "didn't hit the mark for everyone," and so it's bringing Hextech Chests back and reducing the Blue Essence cost for new champions by half.

Riot said in a January update that League's reward systems had "become needlessly complex, with an excessive number of currencies, unnecessary steps to craft and claim rewards, overlapping loot types," and other issues. To rectify that, the studio moved most of the game's rewards onto the battle pass, a move meant to streamline the process. But doing so left level-up rewards almost non-existent, making it more difficult for new players to unlock champions and skins.

The studio quickly acknowledged a problem with the underlying numbers and promised to "significantly increase" Blue Essence rewards, but some players continued to call for a return to the old system, or at the very least for the return of Hextech Chests, and now Riot has relented.

"It’s clear that for many of you, Hextech Chests weren’t just a way to get stuff, they were an important part of making your time in League feel rewarding," Riot wrote in a new developer update. "We didn’t fully grasp how much this mattered to you, and that led us to make changes that missed the mark."

So, with the release of the 25.05 patch next week, Hextech Chests are back: Players will be able to earn 10 chests and keys per act, eight on the free battle pass reward track and two more earnable through Honor. To make room for the addition of Hextech Chests, some battle pass rewards will be "consolidated," although Riot says it "won’t be changing the total amount of Blue Essence you earn per Pass, just moving it around a little." Riot also said the chests earned through the battle pass and Honor "will be the exact same Chests as the ones you got through Champ Mastery."

As for new champions, Riot said building out a roster is "a clear problem for new players," and in order to help ensure League remains "accessible," the 25.05 will also see the Blue Essence cost of all champions reduced by 50%. Changes are also coming to skins: The Exalted Mordekaiser skin is being delayed "to make sure it better delivers on its core fantasy," and more time will be dedicated to future Exalted skins, "so you likely won’t see one in every Act this year as originally planned." The overall number of Season skins is also going to be cut, so developers can spend more time on getting them right.

"Going forward, you can expect 3 thematic skins per pass, 2 normal skins and 1 Prestige," Riot wrote. "For Act 2, our plan is that the skins on the paid battle pass will be Prestige Darius, Sion, and Talon."

Some pretty big changes, then, and while not all players are entirely satisfied with the state of things, the general response to the re-addition of Hextech Chests and the reduced champion costs seems widely positive. And there's one more bit of good news: Head of studio Andrei "Meddler" van Roon said on Reddit that players who bought a champion in the 25.4 patch can contact player support to get half the Blue Essence cost back.

The League of Legends dev team said on X that it's working on rolling out the 25.05 patch to the public beta environment today, but warned that some aspects of it "don't reflect the changes we've outlined in this morning's Dev Update. We're working on those currently and it may take a little time to reflect in that build."