The release of Xayah and Rakan as new champions was a unique change for League of Legends that stood apart from other champions’ identities, but as far as duo-style champions go, there aren’t any future plans to repeat the process.
News that the duo champ dynamic appears to be retired comes from an Ask Riot session that was posted today that covered several different topics. One of the main questions that was answered inquired as to whether or not we’d see any more champs like Xayah and Rakan, but it looks like those two are the one-and-only champion pair, at least for now.
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“Although anything is possible we likely wouldn’t add another unique synergy between two champions,” the answer from Riot Reav3 read. “For one, the game would get very complicated very quickly if many champions had unique interactions that players had to keep track of, but more importantly, having these interactions are what makes Xayah & Rakan unique and we wouldn’t want to take that away from them.”
While some players might’ve been hopeful about more duo-oriented champions being added to League of Legends, the response from Reav3 makes a solid point about the issue with unique interactions, one that echoes early thoughts about Xayah and Rakan when they were first revealed.
While both of the champions can operate independently from each other and find their own successes in lanes, they do carry certain benefits when paired together. A longer dash to shield Xayah and the ability to recall together aren’t necessarily gamebreaking perks, but when the abilities were revealed, there were definitely concerns about the paired benefits. Players were worried about the two being overpowered when together and useless when apart, but we see now that the two are more than viable when separated and even do well when spending time with other champions.
League of Legends isn’t the first MOBA to incorporate duo characters into their roster, but it was certainly the first time that the game had taken such a step. Xayah and Rakan are the first champs to have direct benefits when played together aside from more obvious synergies that champions have.
There might not be any plans to add more duo champs as of now, but as Reav3 mentioned, anything is possible when it comes to future champs and reworks.
