League of Legends Is Bringing Back Butcher's Bridge

League of Legends' Howling Abyss map in ARAM will soon become Butcher's Bridge once again when the updated map returns for a limited time.

Butcher's Bridge is a map that's only been seen in ARAM before, a map that replaces the Howling Abyss with a Bilgewater-themed battle zone. The map was first see during the Bilgewater: Burning Tides event that took place years ago and is making a return once again for another limited-time Bilgewater event.

"Butcher's Bridge is several years old now, and we first made it without the benefits of our new map pipelines and tools," Riot Games' announcement about the map's return said. "We decided to overhaul both Butcher's Bridge and the Howling Abyss, bringing them into the environment tech we first used on Project: Overcharge last year. The upgraded map uses our new lighting system, supports relative team colors, and is significantly easier to maintain."

This event doesn't yet have a release date, but Pyke, the latest Bilgewater champion, will be free-to-play in ARAM after he's released. With his release expected to come in the next patch, it's likely that we can expect the Bilgewater event then.

Butcher's Bridge and a free-to-play Pyke aren't the only new features coming during the event though. You may recall that Riot Games recently spoke about some new items that were coming to ARAM while adding that Warmog's would be removed from the game mode. In the more recent announcement, Riot said that these items and the removal of Warmog's are tied to the limited-time event and aren't guaranteed to stick around, though there's a chance they will return in permanently in the future.

Dark Harvest is also being changed during the event, though this change looks like one that would likely become a permanent adjustment. During the Bligewater event, the Soul Essence that's gained from takedowns will be brought down to four from the current five while cannon minion kills will yield two instead of four. The Domination Keystone Rune is a common choice in ARAM due to the frequency of dropped Soul Essence and how often it can be procced, so it's not hard to imagine that this change becomes permanent for the health of ARAM.

The final change during the Bligewater event is how the healing relics will work. Instead of grabbing a health pack and waiting for the next one to respawn, health packs will instead create a Redemption-like heal that heals enemies and teammates alike. This means that dashing in for a quick health steal won't be nearly as effective any longer since the aura will simply heal the enemies nearby.

Unfortunately, there's been no word on whether Gangplank will return as the announcer or not. Such a question was asked on Reddit with Riot saying that the pirate champ is on someone's list – that someone almost certainly Pyke – but they didn't rule out the possibility of a different announcer. All these changes are just temporary ones during the Bilgewater event, but expect some of them to become permanent and stick around after the event ends.