League of Legends is a game that isn’t necessarily friendly to new players. You have to get to know all the systems, many items and countless champions before you understand the basics of the game. The new season has now made it more difficult to unlock new champions.
How do you currently unlock new champions? LoL currently has almost 170 champions. To unlock it you need blue essence. You’ve been getting these as a free reward from the Battle Pass since the start of the new 2025 season.
Previously, when leveling up, there were champion capsules that contained random champion shards. You could either activate them with blue essences or you could disenchant them and use them to unlock blue essence to unlock the champion of your choice.
This made it not that difficult to acquire new playable characters. But the new season has removed the capsules. Many players criticize this because it now takes significantly longer to get new champions as a Free2Play player.
You can see the video for the new season here:
Welcome to Noxus – opening video for the first LoL season 2025
More videos
Autoplay
Fewer ways to unlock champions
Where is the problem? In the current Battle Pass you get blue essences even if you don’t have the premium model. If you unlock all 50 levels, you get 4750 blue essences. Beyond level 50 you can unlock further stages, for each of which you get 50 blue essences. At the same time you also get 4 free champion capsules that contain shards.
The chests that could be unlocked have been removed. In addition to skins and other cosmetic content, you could also get champion shards.
Content creator Remus explains in a YouTube video that it can take hundreds of hours to unlock a new champion. If you want to unlock all the champions, it can take several years if you don’t buy them with real money.
This is a pretty bad situation for new players, because the best way to learn match-ups and aspects of the game is to also try out champions.
You can see Remus’ video here:
Community is critical of this and would like a system like Marvel Rivals
What does the community say on the topic? Remus’ video is discussed in a current Reddit thread with over 2,700 upvotes and over 700 comments. Players criticize the changes that make it more difficult for Free2Play players.
The figure in the video that it takes over 800 hours to unlock a champion is very exaggerated. The passes unlock some champions and blue essences. The problem is that after level 50 you have basically reached a limit. The 50 essences per pass level that you get afterwards are meager and even with a regular level-up there are no more shards.
What does Riot say on the subject? Riot doesn’t seem to be happy with the current system either. In a recent tweet on x.com, RiotMeddler speaks out and says on the topic: Unlocking new champions with blue essence shouldn’t be made harder. To understand whether something is not working as intended, we dig deeper.
The system as it is now will probably change in the future. At least if you want to believe RiotMeddler’s statement. Because new champions appear regularly, even experienced players will need blue essences. The company behind Riot is currently having some problems in the USA: LoL’s parent company is losing millions of euros on the stock exchange due to a decision by the US government