Teamfight Tactics Developers Discuss Set 14 Blasting Riot's Champions Into Cyber City

Teamfight Tactics' upcoming fourteenth set, Cyber City, is set to bring League of Legends champions into a cyberpunk inspired throwdown, and I spoke to the developers on what to expect. The multiplayer PvP auto-battler spin-off of League of Legends has been going strong for over five years, and has only been building momentum after the critical and commercial success of Arcane. In the aftermath of a set honoring that animated show, TFT is shifting gears and bringing the action to a different chaotic city while building on the long-term developments of Teamfight Tactics.

Cyber City is a cyberpunk-inspired setting where players can utilize squads composed of futuristic criminals who embrace a classic 1920's gangster look. The result is crime boss monsters, fantastical enforcers, and cybernetic brawlers. League of Legends champions and lore like Shaco and Brand make their comeback for the new set of TFT, while the set also serves as the debut of newer characters like Aurora and Kobuko.

During an interview with ScreenRant, Teamfight Tactics Lead Set Designer Liv Breeden and Cosmetics Producer Alex Yang discussed Set 14, the new attributes, and the importance of tonal balance in the game.

Teamfight Tactics Goes Cyberpunk

Cyber City Brings Runeterra Into The Future

Set 14 for Teamfight Tactics is Cyber City a cyberpunk gang war update that introduces a number of new factions and traits into the mix. The set focuses on champions like Garen, Renekton, and Samira vying for control of the titular cyberpunk urban sprawl. The idea has been in the works for over a year, according to Liv Breeden: "We were looking at something that feels different, that feels novel." After deciding on a sci-fi visual scheme, Breeden recalled how "everyone was gravitating towards the cyberpunk aesthetic.

"It's really exciting in some ways, but it's also really challenging in others. There's so many ways that you can present Cyberpunk.... we settled on this futuristic thing. We loved the esthetics of neon light and rain in the city and augmented people on the streets."

This was also an ideal opportunity to introduce League of Legends characters to TFT like Aurora, a relatively new champion whose unique skills allow her to use portals across the battlefield in unexpected ways. "[Aurora] has this really cool mechanic where we're breaking the rules of what TFT does. It's a bunch of cool stuff."

Teamfight Tactis Set 14 Factions, Origins, Traits, And Mechanics Explained

"It's Going To Be A Bunch Of Different Factions All Vying For Power In Their Own Little Ways."

Cyber City's embrace of a retro-futuristic gangster visual scheme lends itself well to the new traits, origins, and mechanics of the set. Designed as a means of introducing some natural chaos into matches, Hacks works as the core set mechanic. The Shops, Orbs, Carousels, and Augments have been breached by hackers, fitting the casual criminal setting by having a number of wildcard criminals throwing attributes from the hacked stores into the fray.

These randomized Hacks bring a certain unpredictability to the matches that can force players to make sudden decisions that could reshape the direction of a game. Another core element of the new set is the various factions that the champions belong to thanks to new origins, fitting neatly into the thematic throughline of Cyber City. The Street Demon, Golden Ox, Cypher, and Syndicate champions all have traits that benefit from synergetic builds, increasing the incentive to create teams that lean into a specific grouping.

Origins For TFT Set 14 Trait Description Anima Squad Weapon Arsenal (choose a weapon that fires automatically during combat) Cyberbosses Growth (Grows in size and power with leveling up) Cypher Intel (Collect intel by killing champions, trade intel for loot during rounds) Golden Ox Spend Big (Bonuses can be increased permanently) Street Demons Hexes (Marked Hexes give Street Demons increased stats) Syndicate Kingpin (Upgrade champions with Kingpin item for massive boost)

When choosing the champions for the set, Breeden noted that it was important they pick the ones that felt like they could be the "face of what Cyberpunk City is." This proved to be a tricky endeavor at times. Ultimately, it came about by deciding on opposing sides of a cyberpunk territory war between the upper-class Corpo-Deities and the street-level groups like the Street Demons.

"Then it was about filling in the rest of the pieces, where we wanted to make sure that every faction or origin felt like it was a unique slice of this city. We wanted to have the Shadow Brokers, we have Cypher, we have the Syndicate, with this shadow eldritch mobster sort of vibe as well. It's just a bunch of cool esthetics... it's going to be a bunch of different factions all vying for power in their own little ways."

For the cosmetics team, Yang noted that it was all about taking "the core thematics and parts of League that we love, that we know the players love, and translate them into something more like TFT... we want to make sure things feel cohesive. We start with a thematic core, and then we look across the League of Legends universe for things that really fit well with this thematic core. There's a lot of champions that we haven't hit yet. There are champions that we know players love that we haven't been able to make a tactician for."

Related Teamfight Tactics' Geoff Virtue & Lynda Tang On Being A "Forever Game" We chatted with TFT developers Geoff Virtue and Lynda Tang about the game's fifth anniversary, its changes, and how it wants to be a "forever game."

Even while helping flesh out the look and tenor of Cyber City, it was important to Yang that the game still retains that broad and sometimes goofy element at the heart of TFT. Forecaster Janna, a cosmetic that transforms the ancient elemental figure into a weather reporter, is one way the game reflected that approach.

"Janna has been a champion we've wanted to do for a long time. It fits the aesthetic and style really well. It couldn't just be a base version, even though some of the other skins are a lot more ethereal and fantasy-oriented. With Forecast Janna, she has a job! She's reporting on the weather of the city. We were really able to play into some of the light-heartedness that is at the core of what makes TFT fun."

Some of that natural levity can be found with the Cyberbosses, a faction of digital Yordles that Breeden was particularly excited for. "We wanted to make sure that we injected that levity, so that it still felt like a TFT set, even with the potential heaviness of a cyberpunk set."

Making Set 14 Of Teamfight Tactics Stand Out

Cyber City Is More Than Just A Visual Change

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After fourteen different takes on Teamfight Tactics, it's important for the creatives and developers at Riot to keep the players guessing. The chaotic and quick-paced nature of TFT ensures that rounds can feel entirely different from one another in quick succession, but risks feeling repetitive if there's not enough variety to the combat. This helped inspire the amount of versatility baked into the Augments that come with each group. "All of our origins in Cyber City have two different augments," Breeden explained.

"Normally they get one augment. It's like I'm playing a Street Demon, and then there's the Street Demon Plus version. But here, there's a more complex upgrade, where if you want to dig in and play with the build a little bit, you'd have these options available. All of the factions have different augments. That means every time you play, it can feel different." Even with Cyber City set to debut soon, the TFT team is already looking ahead to the rest of 2025.

"I think there's a lot of cool areas where we're pushing the limits of what a cosmetic can look like," Yang noted. "What we've already done with Unbound, we've been really happy with the player reaction to it. I think we're really trying to explore more ways we can provide different styles to the tacticians. We're excited for the rest of the year. We had a lot of cool new champions, we've got some returning champions I think Teamfight Tactics players are really going to like."

Teamfight Tactics Set 14, Cyber City, hits PBE servers on March 18