Announced by Riot Games on Tuesday, April 14th,
League of Legends upcoming season,
Pandemonium, is set to take players into a darker, yet shorter, chapter by focusing on the demons of Runeterra. Starting by
following Vayne on a demon hunt beyond Demacia, the second season of 2026 will be shorter than usual but will also bring
a lot of new systems, including one designed to detect and end matches affected by disruptive behavior.
Season 2 of 2026 is
expected to arrive with Patch 26.09 on April 29, 2026, and it will run for
only six patches instead of the usual eight, making it noticeably shorter than previous seasons. Riot Games explained that this change is designed to make room for a longer season later in the year, while adjustments to the Battle Pass aim to keep progression time roughly the same despite the reduced duration.
Thus, Pandemonium will lean more into narrative, following Vayne as she hunts demons on the outskirts of Demacia while confronting parts of her past. Riot said that players will “learn a little bit more about her as she deals with a few demons from her past that have come to haunt her,” and the motion comics releasing later in the season will expand on her story.
Author’s note:
Pandemonium comes from two ancient greek terms meaning “all demons” - hopefully the new League season will stay true to its name and we’ll see more demons that those we already know.
And as previously mentioned, the only new champion of 2026 is also expected to arrive in Pandemonium. Although details remain under wraps, Riot has revealed that the new champion will be an AP assassin for the midlane.
How gameplay is changing this season
With Pandemonium, Riot is shifting how seasonal themes affect gameplay by moving away from heavy in-match changes and focusing more on modes, cosmetics, and how storytelling elements can be lightly embedded into Summoner’s Rift. This change in how Riot approaches gameplay changes in Seasons comes after mixed reactions to earlier ones — like the Noxian one — which sometimes made players feel disconnected from the core League experience.
“We’ve been thinking a lot about how and where we deploy the seasonal thematic elements,” said Lead Gameplay Designer Matthew Leung-Harrison, also knowns as Riot Phroxzon, adding that some previous features “didn’t necessarily land super well in the places where we wanted them to.” And rather than forcing major changes into Summoner’s Rift again, the team chose a more cautious approach this time.
And that approach extends to gameplay updates overall, which are intentionally smaller in scope. Leung-Harrison explained that the team “didn’t really feel like we needed a lot of large table flips,” pointing to strong player sentiment and engagement as reasons to avoid drastic mid-season changes while still introducing smaller improvements.
In practice, this means updates such as tweaks to role quests, the return of some older keystones, and small additions aimed at expanding build options through items and runes. All alongside the arrival of the new champion, expected for either Patch 26.11 or the following one.
New system targets disruptive behavior while in game
Later in the season, Riot will introduce a new system where players will be able to vote to end a match early when the system detects clear game-ruining behavior, thus introducing a structured response to extreme cases of inting. And instead of relying only on manual reports, this system looks at situations where a team’s chances of winning drop dramatically after a certain player does something.
“One thing that we do monitor is things like players selling their entire inventory and then just walking out the fountain. That is for sure just going to end the game on the spot,” said Leung-Harrison. “And so those are the types of things that we think are worth terminating a game over, and it's really when the team essentially has a very, very, very low chance to win after this event happens.”
The outcome of these matches is also handled differently, as allied players will not lose LP, while the opposing team still receives full rewards for the win. And the offending player, along with any premade teammates, will lose LP and face additional punishment, with Riot aiming for a system that is highly accurate and avoids punishing unusual but valid strategies.
Skins, Battle Pass rewards, and Your Shop
With a shorter season come changes to the Battle Pass, which will reshape how players unlock cosmetics as non-Prestige skins will now be available for direct purchase instead of being locked behind BP progression. And in their place, the pass will include “fiendish mystery skin loot orbs” that guarantee a demon-themed Epic skin, tying rewards more closely to the season’s theme.
Prestige skins this season will feature Shaco and LeBlanc, with Veigar arriving in the following season, while additional skins range from thematic to playful, including Rain Shepherd Ivern and PROJECT: Quinn. The return of the Dayjobs line will introduce Breadsticks Irelia and Spaghetti alla Vel’Koz as part of a cooking-themed set.
Returning events round out the season, with Your Shop scheduled for May 5th and the Blue Essence Emporium following on May 13th. But whether Pandemonium will finally dig into those mysteries or continue to circle around them remains unclear, but fans’ appetite for richer, darker lore is clearly there.
Author’s note:
There’s a sense that Riot is cautiously stepping into territory it has avoided for years, and Pandemonium might be the clearest sign yet. The world of Runeterra has always had darker elements — demons, corruption, psychological horror, and so on — but they often sit just beneath the surface and are rarely explored in full. And while the game’s tone has matured over time, it has also remained somewhat constrained, likely due to its broad audience and PG-13 framing.
That restraint has been especially noticeable when it comes to demons and certain champions’ lore. Characters like Shaco, for example, have existed in a strange limbo for years, with little meaningful lore despite their strong champion identity. And while demons are technically part of the world opf Runeterra, their stories often feel fragmented or underdeveloped, more like concepts than fully realized narratives.
And this is where Pandemonium could matter most.
Even as a shorter season, it presents an opportunity for Riot to finally lean into those harsher, more unsettling aspects of Runeterra instead of softening them. Past decisions — like the reworked lore of Seraphine or the absence of the mage rebellion in Demacia’s season — have shown a tendency to sidestep more complex or uncomfortable themes.
So while expectations should probably stay grounded, there is still hope that this season will push things further. If Riot truly embraces the demon theme — not just visually, but narratively — it would be a breath of fresh air for players yearning for darker themes to be explored in League.
