PAX West 2026 welcomes Riot Games' Marc merrill as storytime speaker. June 25, 2026 SEATTLE - June 25, 2026 - Show organizers ReedPop and Penny Arcade reveal Marc Merril, the Co-Founder, Co-Chairman, and Chief Product Officer at Riot Games, will kick off PAX West 2026 as the storytime speaker. The West Coast's most-attended gaming event returns to the Seattle Convention Center this Labor Day weekend from Friday, Sept. 4, through Monday, Sept. 7, 2026. Merrill will be the first to take the Main Stage on Friday, Sept. 4, 2026, for a fun and personal retrospective celebrating his career. Marc is renowned for leading the developer and publisher behind beloved classics cumulatively played by hundreds of millions, including League of Legends, VALORANT, Team Fight Tactics, and more. After founding Riot Games in 2006, Marc became their first Chief Product Officer and expanded their portfolio with titles such as Riftbound and Legends of Runeterra. Merrill also serves as Executive Producer on the 2021 award-winning animated Netflix series Arcane, as well as on the Board of Directors of several non-profit organizations, including City Year Los Angeles, Unite America, and Seal Family Foundation. PAX West 2026 will host gaming and pop culture fans from around the world over Labor Day weekend. Attendees can check out hands-on demos of hotly anticipated games and panels with legendary game developers, journalists, and creators. Fans of AAA, indie, and tabletop gaming can round out the weekend with concerts, competitive gaming tournaments, community meetups, and more to be announced over the coming months. "Marc Merril's Storytime is going to be like getting in a time machine for the industry's past, present, and future. His experience spans two decades, toiling behind the scenes of a global phenomenon," said Jerry Holkins, co-founder of Penny Arcade, Child's Play, and PAX. "Of course, attendee badges give people at the show access to the entire seat - but they'll only need the edge." PAX West 2026 badges are available now. Four-day badges are priced at $252.00, while Saturday-only badges are available for $84.00, Friday or Sunday-only badges for $77.70, Monday-only and BYOC (Bring Your Own Computer) for $56.70, and the new Kids 4-Day badges for $56.70 for children up to 12 years old.

Jesse Wylde promoted to Head of Global Music Marketing & Partnerships at Riot Games Music. Riot Games Music has announced the promotion of Jesse Wylde to Head of Global Music Marketing & Partnerships. 34 seconds ago 06/25/2026 Riot Games logo Riot Games Music has promoted Jesse Wylde to Head of Global Music Marketing & Partnerships, reporting to Maria Egan, Global Head of Music & Events. Since joining Riot in 2025 as a Music Strategist, Wylde has played a key role in advancing Riot's player-first music strategy across League of Legends, VALORANT, and 2XKO. Drawing on more than a decade of music industry experience spanning Warner Records, AWAL, and Artist Partner Group (APG), he has helped deliver some of Riot Music's most impactful global campaigns. Among his accomplishments, Wylde helped lead the music marketing campaign for the 2025 League of Legends World Championship anthem "Sacrifice," featuring G.E.M. and Anyma, which generated more than 120 million YouTube views and 26 million global streams. He has also expanded VALORANT's music footprint through major initiatives, including VALORANT SOUND, the launch campaign for Audrey Nuna and KiNG MALA's reimagining of "Toxic," and helped lead an ongoing music partnership for VALORANT with global pop superstars KATSEYE, which included integration of VALORANT IP in the group's 2025 tour visuals. In addition to franchise marketing efforts, Wylde oversees Riot's marketing relationship with Virgin Music Group, helping strengthen the company's global music infrastructure and artist partnership strategy.

Riot Games pulls last hit indicators from ranked modes in 26.13 patch notes after mixed community reception. Last Updated: 24/06/2026 Riot Games introduced a new in-game accessibility feature with last hit indicators in the latest Patch 26.13 notes. However, there was mixed reception to the change, and so Riot is pulling Last Hit Indicators from Ranked play hours after the patch went live. The announcement sparked significant discussion when the Patch 26.13 notes were revealed. Riot Games initially stated that Last Hit Indicators would come to both Normal Draft and Ranked games. The aim was to make it easier to indicate when it was clear to last hit a minion, ensuring it became easier to secure the creep, get your gold and help pace the game faster. The feature shows a white indicator on a minion's health bar when it can be killed with a basic attack, helping newer players secure CS more consistently. The intention with Patch 26.13 was to help transition players into being better in ranked modes. Ultimately, it should help speed games up, with better gold income and a better understanding of game mechanics, pacing and more. The LoL community has mixed reception over LoL's initial Last Hit Indicators feature. Yet many in the community strongly disagreed with the Ranked element of that. Many players argued that last hitting is a core skill expression in League of Legends, and that introducing indicators into Ranked would undermine one of the game's most fundamental mechanics. It's extremely important for roles like ADC, where last hitting is a key part of the game. Mid laners also tend to have a harder time understanding last hit ranges, with lower AD and armour pen scaling in their champion designs outside of wave clearing. Personality Dragdar, known for his Ezreal in solo queue, summed up the sentiment bluntly on X, writing: "This change is absolutely absurd. Last hitting minions is quite literally League of Legends." On the other hand, former pro jungler William "Meteos" Hartman, of C9 mentions he opted to turn it off anyway as he found it annoying, seemingly unbothered about it being in the game as a feature. Karmine Corp Blue's top laner and EUW Challenger player Alexis "Koala" Gonzalez also weighed in, arguing that even Challenger-level players miss a significant amount of CS and that there is "legit 0 reason to not activate it every time and handicap yourself." There's clearly a mixed bag of responses from high-ranked players. It seems like a decent compromise, leaving it in more casual modes, allowing players to learn the game in a much better environment. The average player base can't seem to come to consensus, so Riot seems to be damned if they do, and damned if they don't. The current response feels like a solid middle ground that helps players learn the game without compromising the integrity of ranked modes, regardless of skill bracket. It's not the first time new features scare ranked play. Over the last year, Riot Games also tested out a feature known as WASD, which aimed to add in a new control scheme using more familiar UX playing games. LoL sees it origins ported over from RTS style game, relying on select keybindings, mouse and clicking around. That too brought fear over its potential to abuse in-game mechanics of League of Legends, with the likes of Kalista often being promoted as the most abusable champ. That has been in ranked queues since April and is not often discussed. Admittedly, Last hitting features are more abusable as they will help skill expression over core game fundamentals. But, if it goes the way of WASD, perhaps if it does come to ranked, the initial reaction could be more overblown. Esports News all know that gamers don't like change, especially when it makes the game they're good at a little bit easier for the plebs amongst Esports News. There's no news if changes are coming in 26.14. All Esports News know about that patch is the T1 World Skins will be in there. Craig began his career with Esports News UK back in 2015/2016, looking to write about a passion while studying at Manchester Metropolitan University. He stayed there for several years before moving on to other websites to begin his career after graduating. Now he's back, covering esports adjacent topics and UK stories. Get the most important stories delivered straight to your Google News feed - timely and reliable From breaking news and in-depth match analysis to exclusive interviews and behind-the-scenes content, Esports News bring you the stories that shape the esports scene in the UK. Monthly Visitors Esports Covered Years experience