Riot delays next League of Legends champion release after late Vex launch

Riot confirmed they’re delaying the next League of Legends champion release until sometime in 2022 after their latest champion, Vex the Gloomist, launched later than expected.

It’s been a while since Riot shared a champion roadmap update. However, they issued a new one on September 27, and it confirmed what some players expected – Vex’s late launch has impacted the champion release schedule.

Vex was announced on the eve of League of Legends patch 11.18. However, she wasn’t released until September 23 along with League of Legends patch 11.19. It’s been dominating ever since. So, the developers rushed out some nerfs.

The situation has thrown a spanner in the works, and along with some other factors, it has impacted the roadmap moving forward. There won’t be another champion released in 2021. Instead, we’ll have to wait until 2022.

“Last year, we shared our goal to deliver one champion per role each year, with the exception of mid lane where we target two—one for assassin and skirmisher players, and another for mage players,” said the developers.

“We planned to continue that this year, but sadly it looks like we won’t get there. Both of the champions we planned to release towards the end of the year were originally meant to tie into an event, but as development went on it became clear they didn’t quite fit.

“We felt good about both champions’ directions and didn’t want to change them to fit in with the event, so we decided to stay true to their characters. As such, we’ll be releasing the ADC early next year and the support a few patches after.”

Riot isn’t sure how this will impact their schedule in 2022. They admitted it’s possible that an extra champion could release next year to compensate. However, they told players they’d have a clearer picture in a few months.

ADC and support mains will need to wait a little longer before they can get their hands on a new champion. But the good news is that it’s expected to happen earlier in the year rather than later.

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