League of Legends’ preseason additions look wild, include new dragons

League of Legends works on a seasonal model, where developer Riot Games starts off a fresh year with lots of changes to the competitive game. This upcoming preseason is no exception, and fans can expect big changes to Summoner’s Rift on PC.

On Thursday, Riot released a video called “Preseason 2022 and the State of the Game,” in which the developer discussed new champion balance — and admitted that some recent champions have had a few too many tools in their belt — as well as new mythic and legendary items, changes to the runes system, new bounties for objectives and towers, and the star of the preview: some wild new dragons.

Dragons are a powerful map objective. They spawn in the river pit on the bottom side of the map, and can come in one of a few elemental varieties. Each elemental dragon changes the terrain of the map, and offers buffs when killed, making it an important task for teams to prioritize.

Preseason 2022 is adding two new dragons. The Hextech Dragon offers gates around the map that allow for teleportation. The Chemtech Dragon grants players extra damage when their health is low, and when they die, they get a second shot at killing their enemies with a short-lived ghost form. In addition, the Chemtech Dragon creates camouflage zones around the map to hide teams. Sneaky!

Preseason 2022 will be available on the game’s test environment in a couple of weeks, and Riot will dial back these new changes if they disrupt the game a little too much. Right now, League of Legends esports teams are competing in the game’s yearly Worlds tournament. Arcane, a television series that explores Hextech and Chemtech in the cities of Zaun and Piltover, will debut on Netflix in November.