It’s that time of the year baby! Summer is prime time for the hottest events in League of Legends, and this year it’s looking better than ever. And after years of lackluster battle passes and recycled orbs and capsules framed as “events”, Riot finally decided to go back to the drawing board and give us something new this year, and I’ll tell you what, it looks promising!
An abandoned project became an idea, an idea turned into a prototype and that prototype became Swarm: An all-new PVE game mode made from the ground up with its own fresh mechanics and progressions system, promising high replayability and breathing newfound excitement into the game (especially since the last PVE game mode we had was Odyssey in 2018 ). We’re also getting a new Skinline as well, so that’s pretty cool.
Anima Squad is building up to be a thrilling event, so let’s dive into what it has in store for us, starting with the elephant in the rift.
Swarm (or Operation: Anima Squad) is a new PVE, Vampire Survivors-style Game mode similar to the likes of the Odyssey and Star Guardian events we had in 2017-2018.
You’ll get to play solo, or with up to 4 friends, in a bullet hell fighting waves of AI units, progressing through tough challenges with the goal of taking down the final Primordian: AAtrox.
Join the ranks of the new Anima Squad team and play as their champions, including Xayah, Jinx, Leona, Illaoi, Riven, Yasuo, Seraphine, and Aurora (bad news for the psychopath mains out there, Yuumi won’t be playable). Multiple people can play the same champion in each match so your Yasuo maining friends can breathe easy!
Each champion is equipped with a passive, a basic attack, an active ability, and an Ultimate ability on your E and R keys. “Where are my Q and W” you might ask. Well, it’s because, in this mode,, you actually move using WASD unlike how you normally do in League using your mouse. It may feel weird at first but I’m sure it’ll be second nature after a game or two.
Over the course of a playthrough, your champion will get stronger by gaining access to stats and passive skills that help you blast your way through hoards of primordian enemies! Think of them like the augments you get in Arena with the boomerang and Blitzcrank hook, but dialed up to 11.
There are two ways to gain these augments:
This isn’t the only form of progression in the mode, there is also cross-match progression, meaning that you get stronger game after game by unlocking new characters and upgrading your weapons with gold that you acquire in-game. This makes each run feel more rewarding, giving a true sense of progression and offering high replayability.
You’ll get to play in 4 new HUUUGE maps taking place in Final City, each with its own boss and difficulty level, scaling up from Rek’sai, Briar, Bel’veth, and ultimately, AAtrox.
You won’t be facing him right away without gearing up so have fun and progress through the levels at your own pace (You won’t be able to handle his multiple phases either so be at ease).
Based on how it looks so far, this feels more like a fully-fledged Bullet Heaven arcade game that you’d buy on its own, but here we are! We also had to wait 6 years for this soooo we kinda deserve it.
In 2019, Riot announced that they would be discontinuing custom Game modes for the foreseeable future, and it was such a bummer for the community who were promised a new iteration of 2017’s Star Guardian: Invasion PVE mode later that year.
Many have shown their admiration for the previous year’s Odyssey mode, describing it as “The most fun they’ve ever had in League of Legends” (me included). However, for the next 6 years, all we ever got were reskinned versions of older modes like URF and One for All (we got Nexus Blitz and Arena, but nothing to the level of older PVE modes).
So you can imagine how excited everyone got when Riot officially announced 2 months ago that they’ve been working on a new PVE Vampire Survivors mode, I know I’ve been on the edge of my chair since then!
What makes this event even more significant is that people who never got the chance to experience the loads of fun that Odyssey and Star Guardian offered will get the chance to play something on an even bigger scale this time around. It’ll also be such a breath of fresh air for the game and an escape from the cesspool that is Ranked queue. This mode will also come with its own achievements and exclusive rewards as well as skins and limited-time borders for those brave enough to defeat the final boss!
Other than a new game mode, this event will introduce a new Skinline, Anima squad: Animal cyberpunk-themed saviors assembled with the singular aim of safeguarding the planet.
It’s set in the same universe as Battle Bat Vayne and Battle Wolf Sylas. While it’s not technically a new skinline, it’s greatly expanding the existing one and cementing it among the most broad and influential skinlines in the game (i.e: Star Guardian, Spirit Blossom, Project…).
The Anima Squad roster will encompass most of the champions that you’ll be able to play in the new game mode as well as the event bosses, and they’ll be Xayah, Riven, Yuumi, Illaoi, Jinx, Leona, Yasuo, Seraphine, Aurora, Briar (she’s one of the good ones apparently), Rek’sai, Bel’veth and Aatrox. That was a mouthful!
The plot sets up a planet invaded by ancient monsters called Primordians, where brave defenders going under the banner of the Anima Squad join forces to save to world using their high-tech gadgets and kitty fangs.
We’ll get to explore the lore hands-on through the Swarm game mode, with the hope that Riot drops a cool cinematic like how they did during the Odyssey event.
We’ll of course get an events pass and orbs like we’ve been having for the past 7 years, I can sense the orb phreaks already drawing that $20 from their pockets. But this might be worth a shot if it’s as good as the Hall of Fame event pass, it’ll be interesting to see.
Final City and the new Anima Squad members are likely to hit PBE servers on July 2, with live servers following suit on July 17. The event will be running until August 19 so it’ll be plenty of time to hunt all the achievements and have loads of fun with your friends, explorig everything this mode has to offer.
This event has been eagerly anticipated by the community and is expected to draw back both veteran and newer players to the game. Should Riot recognize its potential for substantial success, they would ideally maintain this momentum and introduce more innovative events in the future, rather than recycling the same three modes every few months. They’d score higher sales and we’d have more fun, It’s a win-win for everyone!
Since we still haven’t gotten our hands on the mode yet, the only insight we have surrounding it is through content creators who were invited to test it behind the scenes. We might have to take their word for how polished it is, but it does look pretty fun, what can I say?
