It’s hard to believe we’re now on the twelfth Teamfight Tactics set – how the time flies. Magic N’ Mayhem has already been in players’ hands for about two weeks now and is going over well, but with the strategy game being over five years old, how does it continue to create new and interesting experiences for players and deliver surprises? Oh look – here’s one. Riot just unveiled Tocker’s Trials, TFT’s first ever fully-PvE game mode, which is dropping later this month.
As a competitive strategy game, TFT of course thrives on out-thinking opponents and flaunting victories. However, if you want a bit of respite from the intensity of competitive play (and getting drubbed in ranked) there’s nowhere you can really turn to. Tocker’s Trials looks to be Riot’s first attempt at plugging that gap with a single-player mode – however, there’s still plenty of room for chaos and challenge.
Tocker’s Trials involves 30 rounds, six bosses, and only three lives – the HP bar has been binned in favor of a lives system that is quite unforgiving. “Things start out simple, but you’ll need to put your skills to the test against boards you’d never encounter anywhere else in TFT,” Riot says in its announcement post.
With quite the gauntlet ahead of you, Riot has at least been kind enough to give you access to the current set’s champion and Augment roster – there won’t be any Charms though. There are also no timers to stress you out either, so while it does require some strong tactical thinking, you won’t be rushed into planning each round.
Should you conquer Tocker’s Trials, then there’s yet another challenge that awaits you: Chaos Mode. Riot’s keeping its cards close to its chest at the moment in regards to what you’ll encounter in this amped-up, harder version of the mode, but you should expect some “new twists.”
You can play Tocker’s Trials in Teamfight Tactics when patch 14.17 arrives on Tuesday, August 27. It is, however, a limited-time mode, and Tocker’s Trials will be rotated out of TFT with patch 14.19 on Tuesday, September 24, so you’ve got roughly a month to play it and get your name up on its leaderboards.
It sounds like this is also just the beginning of Riot bringing more PvE experiences to the game. “PvE is something we’ve talked about for a long time in TFT, and this is one of the REDACTEDs I got to help with and am excited for everyone to try out,” lead designer Stephen ‘Mortdog’ Mortimer says in a post on X. “There’s so much potential in the PvE space for TFT, so this feels like us moving forward as a game even more!”
Who knows what will come after, but Tocker’s Trials is definitely an exciting first step. For more games like TFT, check out our guide to the best auto battlers. Alternatively, take a look at some other incredibly popular free PC games you can jump into and enjoy.
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