LoL: Brawl is back as a New Player Experience Testing

Riot Games has announced the return of Brawl mode as part of the New Player Experience testing, describing it as "a tool in helping new players learn League." The idea behind Brawl is to give newcomers a better introduction to teamfighting in League of Legends without having to go through all the complexities of the Summoner’s Rift. As part of the New Player Journey, the mode is intended to make that first contact with the game more engaging and fun.

This means that for the next two patches, Brawl will be available starting September 24 for anyone who missed it. The mode initially gained strong popularity upon release but was replaced by Doom Bots, which has been featured in the client in recent weeks. In mid-August, Maddy Wojdak Marquissee, Senior Game Product Manager at Riot Games, announced on her newly created X account that her team is actively working on improving the LoL tutorial.

Attracting new players over and over has become an increasingly difficult task for Riot Games. League of Legends stands as one of the most complex games to grasp, both to play and to watch as an esport. The developers are well aware that the experience for new players and viewers is far from optimal, given the sheer amount of champions, items, objectives, and techniques to learn—wave management, jungle pathing, roaming, and more. For someone just starting out, the game can simply feel overwhelming.

It’s with this goal in mind that Riot Games is introducing Brawl, giving new players a direct dive into pure teamfighting action. But this still leaves the question of how to approach the rest of the game on Summoner’s Rift. Maddy explained that the broader ambition is to completely overhaul League’s tutorials, a feature long criticized for feeling outdated in the face of the game’s growing complexity. In response to a player’s question, she added that the new system is being designed to be much more flexible, making it easier for Riot to keep it updated in step with the constant additions and changes—something the current tutorial fails to achieve.