League of Legends’ New Honor System Gives Me Hope for Better Games

League of Legends has an Honor system in place which, in theory, should incentivize better behavior, but it’s struggled to do so over the years. Instead of being something players seem to strive for, it’s another piece of League‘s ever-growing progression ecosystem that gives players the occasional loot drop so long as they’re not being abhorrent in games. But there are some changes oh the horizon in 2025 which have me more excited than I am for any new champion or jungle updates planned for this year.

The current iteration of the Honor system barring some tweaks is one that’s been in place since 2022 when Riot Games introduced the “Three Honors” line of skins as well as routine Honor Orbs and Honor Capsules for well-mannered players. These loot drops for the most part consist of Key Fragments (you’re on your own when it comes to getting a Hextech Chest) with the ultimate reward being one of the Three Honors skins at the end of the season when Honor rewards are finalized. You get a fancy Honor recall around your champion, too, to show off your level to others.

Honor Levels in League go up to Honor Level 5 which is where I’ve been sitting at for awhile now, but I probably shouldn’t have it. I’m not flaming people in-game and have never been chat restricted, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t fuss in chat in 2024 or get the “You must wait before issuing more pings” message. The problem is that progressing through the Honor system is so easy that it doesn’t actually incentivize positive play at all — it feels like it’s one-part good behavior and one-part just playing League a lot. It incentivizes neutral play at best, and if I may be so sappy as to say so, League players (myself included) should strive for more than that.

That’s why the new Honor system coming to League this year has potential, it seems. It’s tied into League’s inevitable embrace of a real battle pass system (which is a different topic entirely), so Battle Pass XP drops are replacing the Key Fragments with bigger drops earned the higher your Honor Level. At the highest Honor Levels, Level 4 and Level 5, you get the most interesting rewards. Honor Level 4 grants more frequent pings and emotes since Riot trusts you to use them appropriately, and Honor Level 5 grants Honor emblems in chat as well as the Honor recall and, of course, the Three Honors skins.

Rare skins are great and all, but they run into the same problem other one-a-year skins like the Victorious line encountered. If you don’t play those champions that get the Three Honors skins or other cosmetics redeemable (Twitch, Warwick, Malzahar, Akshan, and soon Shen), there’s far less an incentive to work towards. League‘s progression systems have become so bloated over the years with keys, capsules, tokens, event passes, Eternals, and more to sift through, so hopefully streamlining Honor rewards as a very recognizable “Battle Pass XP Drops” will provide a clearer goal to work towards with Three Honors skins still the ultimate goal if you’re interested in that season’s cosmetic.

But even more interesting than the incentives are the threats. Honor Level 3 is the baseline for neutral behavior, so if you reach that point, you get drops and can chat freely. Should you drop down to Honor Level 2, however, something very funny happens: you lose access to All Chat and can’t talk to the enemy team. Drop lower to Honor Level 1 and you lose access to all forms of chat except talking to your team in-game.

It’s a good start, but personally, I don’t think it goes far enough. League players can muster up some pretty vile comments which admittedly are forgotten about soon after the match, but the fact that players with poor reputations can consistently spout rude rhetoric shows that the Honor system should go further. If someone drops as low as Honor Level 1, they should lose chat entirely and should have to showcase their reform through the most basic of tools at hand: pings and teamwork.

That’ll probably never happen, but the new Honor system has me excited for League 2025 regardless. Putting the Honor system right up front as a battle pass incentive might finally encourage players to pay more attention to their Honor Level beyond a pop-up when you boot in and something to get at the end of the year, but we’ll have to wait till the new season officially starts to see how it feels since it’s just now being tested on the PBE.