League of Legends' Clash Mode Is Still in Development, Riot Shares Update

It's been a while since League of Legends' tournament-style Clash mode has been discussed, but it's definitely still in the works. Riot Games confirmed as much in a post which provided an update on the development of the mode as well as how Clash has changed since players last saw it appear during regional tests. Like other parts of Clash that have been tested previously, Riot said these previews weren't as smooth as it would've hoped, so the launch of the Clash mode has been delayed once again to give Riot more time to work on it and make "fundamental changes."

Riot shared this latest news about Clash in a post from the developers which detailed the changes and what Clash will look like in the future. Clash tests were announced back in March and were extended to certain regions so that players could experience the tournament system where tickets are used to partake and rewards are available for the best players. Players still had trouble getting into their Clash games during these tests that included staggered game start times, so these regional tests are being postponed while more changes are made.

"So, as you might've surmised by the lack of additional updates, we're putting regional tests on hold while we make some changes to Clash," Riot said. "Our goal is to strike the right balance between reducing server load and preserving the tournament format to ensure Clash is still the exciting competitive experience we've promised."

Outlining some of the changes which are planned, Riot said it would be changing the game start format to "Rolling Bracket Starts" which will help stagger game times. Being able to recover brackets lost through disconnects or other problems is also a primary goal, and to help reduce the complexity of tournaments, Riot is shifting to two single-day tournaments as opposed to one tournament that spans the entire weekend.

As for the day players will actually get to experience the mode themselves, Riot's timeline says the first time that might happen is this summer. More development and internal testing will come first, and at some point during the summer, regional testing should return.

"We'll run regional tests to build confidence with the changes," Riot said. "If the regional tests are successful (or only run into easily fixable issues), we'll run more regional test until we're confident we can launch in all regions."

A global beta and full launch will follow the testing, assuming those steps go smoothly, but no dates for those phases have been announced yet.