On Aug. 29, Riot Games revealed Nexus Blitz is coming back as a rotating game mode in October. After the official announcement, the devs said this will serve as a “future staple rotating mode,” but it, unfortunately, won’t get any major changes for its rerelease—and this could be a big problem.
According to Riot Cadamus, the spirit and the overall gameplay will stay unchanged, if we don’t count the jungle changes and pets.
Related: A classic LoL rotating game mode is finally returning this fall
The Rioter explained Nexus Blitz will serve as “a future staple rotating mode,” but then again, it’s quite curious this game mode doesn’t have any major changes lined up. Normally, when game modes or anything similar returns to League after a long time, they are reworked and updated.
Take, for example, Statik Shiv. This is an iconic AD carry item that was removed in season 10, and when it made a comeback in season 13, we barely recognized the item. Now, it gives you attack damage, attack speed, critical strike chance, and an incredibly powerful Energized Attack.
Nexus Blitz was first released in 2018 as a game mode that was supposed to stay permanently, but it turns out that the community didn’t like Nexus Blitz that much after the event was wrapped up and there were no quests to grind. Nexus Blitz came back in 2020 with a bang, as the devs gave the map a new coat of paint, better and improved events, and spicy rewards.
No matter how much I love Nexus Blitz, I have to admit it’s flawed. First of all, the snowballing has been out of control ever since this game mode went live and the events are actually helping the cause. In fact, events like Scuttle Crab Racing put the losing team in an unfavorable position and now they are forced to fight the enemy team who already have the upper hand. This only snowballs further and the match is over before you know it.
This leads me to my next point—event spawn points. In Nexus Blitz, event spawn points play a huge role in how the mini-game will play out. If the losing team sees gold Teemo spawning in the enemy’s backyard, there’s little to no chance they will ever win.
Related: LoL mid-scope reworks are on hold right now. Here’s why Riot put them on pause
The rewards for winning the event are also simply overpowered. For example, you can win an Elder Dragon execute buff. In Summoner’s Rift, this is incredibly powerful and it’s balanced around being a game-deciding buff, and most of the games are wrapped up soon after this drake spawns. In a game mode that encourages skirmishes and fights over mini-games, you can get it mid-game and then you can easily steamroll over your opposition.
I absolutely adore Nexus Blitz and I really want to see it at least in a decent state before it releases in October, but judging by Riot’s words that’s not likely to happen. This, again, will push away newcomers from this fun game mode and it could easily meet the same destiny as game modes like Hexakill and Twisted Treeline.
