14 DAY TRIAL // League of Legends developer Riot Games decided to go on a special route for its April Fools prank and introduced Ultra Rapid Fire mode to the game and has actually made it playable in a special queue for one week starting today, April 1.
Video game developers usually offer some wacky fake announcements for April Fools but some actually take things further and deliver working prototypes or small experiences.
Riot Games, however, has decided to add a whole new game mode to League of Legends in the form of Ultra Rapid Fire.
Like its name suggests, the new game type opts to make games much faster and way more hectic, paving the way for a much bigger update that will fundamentally change LoL forever.
More specifically, every champion in League of Legends has an 80% cooldown reduction on abilities, activated items, and summoner spells, meaning players can instantly activate and deploy the many different powers and skills of their characters.
What's more, mana and energy costs have been completely removed, so you can spam spells for as long as you want without worrying about resource costs and other such things.
Last but not least, ranged champions have attack speed bonuses that have been doubled, so that they can withstand the marksmen characters.
The new Ultra Rapid Fire mode is available for normal and co-op vs. AI queues inside the game and those who try it out can earn a special summoner icon that will be delivered to their accounts in three days.
A special competitive Ultra Rapid Fire match can also be watched later today.
Until then, Riot explained on its official website the reasoning behind the major new game mode and what other changes it made in order to at least keep things balanced and not get out of hand.
"We believe that being forewarned is forearmed so we're testing next season's changes with the Ultra Rapid Fire mode. You guys loved the impact our 2014 season changes had on supports' end game fantasies and we realized we wanted to take that philosophy one step further: end game fantasies… accelerated," the studio said.
"Full item builds will take less time to buy, big teamfights will happen more often and no more worrying about pesky resources! From the feedback we've received internally, we think you guys will love these updates."
The new Ultra Rapid Fire game mode is already live in League of Legends right now and you can check out a video preview below.
