Hextech Chests were apparently not sustainable in League of Legends in the long term.
Starting Season 2025, Riot Games removed one of the best ways of earning skins in League of Legends, Hextech Chests.
The Hextech Chests were introduced back in 2016 along with the Hextech Crafting system. They were essentially loot boxes that could be opened via a Hextech Key and players could get random rewards from opening them. These rewards ranged from Champion Shards, Emotes, and Ward skins to even Ultimate Skins.
Players could earn one chest each week and a total of four chests a month. There were also other ways to earn chests, such as earning a certain amount of Split Points from playing ranked, etc.
That said, starting in late 2024, Riot started limiting the way players could earn Hextech Chests. However, starting in Season 2025 permanently removes the ability to earn them. This decision resulted in a massive backlash from the community. Players even started commenting “Where’s my Hextech Chest, Riot?” in videos on the League of Legends YouTube channel.
Thus Riot officially addressed why they removed Hextech Chests from the game, and it wasn’t received very well, to say the least.
Read More: All League of Legends Skins Released in 2025
Why Riot Removed Hextech Chests?
In the latest Dev Update video “Season One Check-in“, Riot commented on why they removed Hextech Chests from League of Legends.
Riot Meddler started the video by expressing their want to deliver great experiences to the players as they believed that it would ultimately lead to great results for Riot Games. They believe that players should be able to play League of Legends without spending anything and only spend money on something great that players want to spend money on.
“As a free-to-play game, skins are the primary way League pays its bills. They’re what give us the ability to continue to develop the game and wider ecosystem,” explained Riot dev Pabro.
Meddler followed up by explaining why they initially added Hextech Chests: to offer rewards to dedicated players. This became a great experience for the player base, as they could reliably obtain free skins. Over time, this became the primary way for most players to obtain skins, leading to many players not buying skins.
Although, it was great for the player-base however, according to Riot it was not financially sustainable. Thus to become more sustainable financially, Riot removed the Hextech Chests from the game and plans to offer meaningful rewards in other ways.
