League of Legends’ new summer event features a survival-style game mode

League of Legends‘ summer event is always a highlight of the year. In recent years we’ve seen visual novels and deep dives into alternate universes like Soul Fighter, Spirit Blossom or Star Guardian. This year, the Anima Squad skin line is in the spotlight, along with a new survival-style Bullet Heaven game that can be played both co-op and solo.

Anima Squad debuted in 2022 and depicts Competition champions as animal-themed cybernetic warriors defending humanity. This year we get new crew members like Battle Bunny Aurora, the debut skin of the new champion; Battle Bear Illaoi; and CyberCat Yuumi.

In Anima Squad lore, humanity has been pushed back to a few bastions. Primordials, Earth’s white blood cells, have become hostile to humanity. These kaiju-like creatures are swarming from the oceans, and only a few heroes wearing repurposed Primordial technology can protect what remains.

The new game mode is called Swarm, or Operation: Anima Squad. Players can queue solo, or play with up to three friends. This game mode plays very differently than standard League of Legends; it’s much closer Vampire survivors with a WASD control scheme. The player must survive a confrontation in Final City and mow down waves of Primordials. Each match yields rewards that lead to more power over time, so even a failed match can pay off in the long run and ultimately help you survive longer, kill more Primordials, and earn more rewards.

We also get a huge list of new skins: Seraphine, Yuumi, Leona, joins the good guys, making her a bit of both). This year the summer event runs from July 17 to August 19. As with previous game modes, it is possible that Swarm will return to League of Legends In the future, we will first have to wait and see what Riot thinks of the player reception at Operation: Anima Squad.