As someone who’s toes have only tentatively dipped into the League of Legends waters, the game has a near-endless capacity to surprise me. If I were a haruspex who read the future in chicken entrails, the last thing I would expect to see LoL unveil is a PvE bullet heaven mode – and yet, here we are. You can play the brand new Anima Squad event right now, so grab some friends and get ready to unleash your fury on the incoming Primordian forces.
The new PvE mode for League of Legends is titled Swarm, or to use its full title – Swarm | Operation: Anima Squad. Set in a far future universe where dastardly Primordian armies are kept in check by heroic cybernetic heroes, you’ll be able to choose from nine of those champions as you dive into wave after wave of intense action. It’s all a long way from the MOBA that spawned it but shows just how willing Riot is to play with the game’s formula, which is a good thing given it’s knocking on 15 years old.
If you’ve played a bullet heaven game like Vampire Survivors or Halls of Torment you’ll be at least partially at home in Swam. You’ll be pumping out a ton of projectiles at the encroaching Primordians in a brand new map based on Final City, trying to survive long enough to complete missions before getting overwhelmed. Like other bullet heavens, there are plenty of upgrades that will drop when playing, so as the enemy levels up – so will you. In addition there’s a permanent upgrade system, much like a roguelike game, that’ll see you slowly gain in strength even before you set foot on the battlefield.
A slew of skins will be hitting League of Legends along with the event, coming in two waves – once at the start, the other half way through when the next patch launches. Seraphine, Yuumi, Aurora, Xayah, Rek’Sai, Bel’Veth, Miss Fortune, Aatrox, Leona, Yauso, Briar, and Illaoi can look forward to getting either Primordian or animal-esque Anima Squad looks throughout the event.
League of Legends Swarm is available to play now and will run until Monday August 19. If you’d like to learn more, head over to our Anima Squad preview where we delve a little deeper into how this mode ticks.
You can also take a peek at our guide to the LoL ranking system to help you make sense of how ranked play works, as well as our LoL tier list to find out who’s top and who’s not in this grand game of champions.
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