Teamfight Tactics is the auto battler of League of Legends. The game was released in 2019 and gained significant popularity towards the end of 2021. The lead designer of TFT reflected on 2021 in a video and provided intriguing insights for the future.
Where does TFT stand right now? Teamfight Tactics struggled at the beginning of 2021 with a rather weak Set 4 and later with a mediocre Set 5. The mechanics did not resonate well with many players, and randomness played an overly significant role, even aside from the selection of champions.
This changed with the current Set 6, which garnered many positive reactions:
- The set appears more balanced and has a reduced focus on randomness.
- The first promotional tournament received good viewership numbers despite the low prize pool.
- The set brought back the major streamers William “Scarra” Li and Jeremy “Disguised Toast” Wang.
- In general, TFT also gained traction on Twitch, surpassing the mark of 140,000 simultaneous viewers for the first time since its release in July 2019 in November 2021, even though the World Championship 2021 already took place in October (via Sullygnome).
Content-wise, the game has also significantly improved. In early 2021, the Hyper Roll was released. This is a type of turbo mode where matches last only 15 minutes, and everything generally runs much faster. Shortly thereafter, a special spectator mode for tournaments was implemented.
Towards the end of the year, the mode Double Up was launched in beta. Here, players team up in pairs and can help each other with champions and items. However, if one player is eliminated, the match ends for both.
What does the head of the game say about TFT? Stephen “Mortdog” Mortimer is the lead developer of TFT and regularly shares matches and insights into the future on his YouTube channel.
In his extensive year-in-review, he reveals that TFT grew in player and developer numbers in 2021 and is set to receive content for the next decades (the relevant part starts from 1:12:10).
TFT is set to receive a kind of 2.0 version, with solid plans for the next 3 years
What new features are planned? As Mortdog reveals in the video, the developers are working on a kind of 2.0 version of TFT. This is not supposed to be a new game, but rather an evolution of TFT:
I remember Meddler [Note: Andrei van Roon, the Vice President of League of Legends] said: “We need to find a TFT 2.0.” I believe this year has strongly pushed us in this direction in many ways. Early next year, there will be some announcements that, in my opinion, will show what we are talking about.
According to Mortdog, there is already a concrete plan for the next three years and for several new sets. TFT is expected to continue for years, even decades, even if they could only implement half of their plans.
Additionally, the developers have increased the size of the team:
We have more people. We have a leadership team, new engineers, new artists, new designers. It feels like we will continue to rise in 2022.
For 2022, the release of Set 6.5 is planned for February and the release of Set 7. One of these sets will include the character Silco from the series Arcane. There will also be several tournaments per set and a World Championship, which already had a prize pool of 250,000 dollars in 2021.
Mortdog also emphasized in his video that he reads daily complaints from players who wish for better balance, bug fixes, or a better mobile version. He sees a lot of potential to make TFT even better in the coming years.
What do you think about Teamfight Tactics? Have you played it in recent weeks or did you drop out at some point? What do you like and what bothers you about the game? Feel free to share it in the comments.
