Make Champions Free

I recently posted a version of this in a YouTube short, but I felt so passionate about my point while I was making it that I wanted to share it here with the community. I put my heart into this post, so my only hope is that some people will actually read this before commenting based on the title.

I’m making this post because I care about what League of Legends could be for the new generation, but is not.

If Riot truly wanted new players, they would make all champions unlocked for free.

I don’t care what excuse they say to justify it. Locking characters behind play time creates an insurmountable barrier to entry. It’s a practice from the time when league first came out and the idea of a well developed game being free was already generous, which built league up in the first place.

But a new player sees 170 locked champions and sees how much time it would take to have all the choices and features, and goes to one of the 50 other popular titles that abandoned that practice a decade ago.

League has a developed pro esport. Teens will play League if they didn’t feel like they are 20 years behind immediately. Thats all a new player really sees when they load LoL. 170 locked champions, that’s your literal first impression. What would you do?

I’d uninstall immediately, even with knowing how fun league can be regardless. I would never have had a chance to actually enjoy league if I was born 13 years later and this was the game in 2026.

The first impression immediately flips if new players instead see 170 unlocked champions. Some people will be intimidated, but the vast majority will immediately think “man, this game has history. I wonder which champions would fit my playstyle?”.

I wish this game would stop trying to make league a game that appeals to people who want a brand new game. Those people aren’t coming.

These are the people who actually want to play League, the ones who want to be a pro, who want to play a historic game and want to see that history. New players will be able to play with their friends and freely swap picks in their duo queue or 5v5 LAN party so they can be strategic in pick/ban like they see in pro games. They will engage.

League is a fun ass game, and I believe this change would have some LAN parties will look like when I was a kid and we would play 1-2 games of CS 1.6 and then league only for 7 hours. Most importantly, the 5th guy they brought to the party to try a full 5v5 with that’s just starting won’t have to feel like they’re behind their friends in anything but practice.

But for gods sake man, to do this, the champions must get unlocked. It feels like the MTG reserved list, but the difference is, there is no legal repercussion to just saying “yeah, this only exists because league was old. Now it needs to be gotten rid of to move League into being competitive for a new generation of gaming”. It’s so free dude. We need this message to let the players play, we need to gather around that and the longevity of League.

You know how I know I’m right? If all the champions were unlocked right now, we wouldn’t be able to go back. If it was really superior for new players, the reaction would be to walk it back. Not a soul on this planet will want to.

Money is in playerbase size. That’s literally what Riot proved that warped gaming forever. Now this game is handcuffing yourself to this ancient practice to squeeze a pebble. League is stuck in 2009 thinking this change might make the game less attractive, when it’s literally the most unattractive part about the game. Like Botox on an otherwise beautiful older woman, thinking nobody could find this game attractive if it just acts like it is.

Drop the insecurity. We should be proud to have come this far as a game, and let new players embrace the whole game for what it is.

Make champions free.