League of Legends fans have been up in arms about the removal of free Hextech Chests from LoL. Players have been left wondering what they can spend their countless keys on if there are no chests to open. Unfortunately, players will have to spend their hard-earned money if they are to get Hextech Chests, with the loot boxes still available in the official League of Legends shop in the client. 

Today, Riot Games released their latest dev update onto YouTube and X/ formerly Twitter, where they explained the reasoning for the removal of free Hextech Chests in League of Legends. 

Over the years, players have been able to get far too many free skins according to Riot, with this method of getting free skins from the chests, being able to stack up a pretty substantial collection of skins without having to pay any money towards them. According to Riot, players preferred simply waiting for a good skin to eventually be earned from the free Hextech chests they would get rather than pay for their own. 

Therefore, Riot has made the executive decision to remove Hextech chests as a free loot system and focus on other means of monetization that will allow Riot to have a stable income from the skins that are purchased and not simply given away. Riot acknowledges that this will be an unpopular decision with the player base, who over the past few weeks have been bombarding every piece of Riot content under the sun demanding free Hextech chests return.

Riot didn't want to go all the way back to the early days of League of Legends where there were hardly any skins in the game, but believe this new system they have put in place will allow them to produce more skins throughout the year, while having a more sustainable income that will allow League of Legends to remain a fun free to play game for many years to come.