Director – Compensation

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

Riot Games highlights Wild Rift 2026 Roadmap in the Philippines. Riot shared details about its Wild Rift Creator and Nexus Elite programs. Riot Games recently announced its Wild Rift 2026 Roadmap in the Philippines, giving fans a good idea of what to expect in terms of esports, community events, and more. One of the biggest highlights of the 2026 roadmap for League's mobile version is the lead-up to SMASH 2026. In case you need a refresher,, the 2026 Wild Rounds: SMASH is the pinnacle of Wild Rift's esports circuit, and in its third edition, SMASH 2026 features two tracks: the Community Champions Cup and the Creator Showmatches. Ahead of the main SMASH 2026 event, Riot Games will hold playoff events for both tracks in Brazil, China, South Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Türkiye. For Filipino players, the Road to SMASH 2026 began with the Wild Rounds: Pilipinas Open, which serves as the official local qualifier. Split 1 of this qualifier runs until July, while Split 2 is accepting registrations ahead of its start on July 6. The Pilipinas Open will then conclude with a big event from September 25 to 27. There, the top eight teams will compete for a spot at SMASH 2026, as well as for the massive PHP 1 million prize pool. The local qualifier will feature community and creator tracks. For the creator track, the matches will use Wild Rift's other game modes, including AARAM and 2v2. After the Grand Finals, the winners of both tracks will secure a flight to South Korea to participate in SMASH 2026. To add to the Road to SMASH 2026 hype, Riot Games announced the 6C and 6D Patch Updates for the game. These two updates will build on the 6A: Ionia Celebrations and 6B: Wild Circuit patches that were released earlier this year. The 6C update will be the main patch of the Wild Rounds: Pilipinas Open qualifiers, while 6D will be released at the end of September. Along with the Road to SMASH 2026, Riot Games also spotlighted its new Wild Rift Partner and Nexus Elite Programs. The Wild Rift Partner Program offers members early-access information on the game's latest updates via private Discord access. As a bonus, members will get exclusive events and workshops. Meanwhile, the Nexus Elite is composed of select Wild Rift players, casters, cosplayers, and more. These Nexus Elite members will participate in various Wild Rift events and promotions throughout the year. The current confirmed lineup in this program includes OHMYV33NUS, WISE, Yamada, Karma, Guiang Gaming, Vannybear, Raux TV, Kapitan Pugo, Rebengga, Kitz Cua, Razziebinx, Trio Pebbles, Manjean, and Coach Rec. More details about Riot Games' creator programs will be shared on the game's official Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok pages.