June 12, 2026, 2:25pm PST: Riot has confirmed that, not only is TFT moving to Unreal Engine, but it’s getting a dedicated client. This story has been updated to reflect the announcement.
League Next is on the way, with the evolution of League of Legends set to bring generational upgrades to its Hextech Engine. However, since Riot Games let the cat out of the bag back in December, my big question has been: ‘what about Teamfight Tactics?’ Well, Riot indicated what the auto-chess game‘s future holds in a now-deleted job ad, which stipulated it would be moving to Unreal Engine. Now, hours after the post was spotted and my initial report published, the studio has confirmed that this is indeed the case.
Riot’s recent listing for a TFT Director of User Experience (UX) Design is all very par for course. However, nestled away in the responsibilities section, eagle-eyed fans spotted the following passage: “Partner with design, product, and art leadership to identify the best future directions for the user experience, especially as we transition into the Unreal Engine.”
Shortly after the ad surfaced online, Riot pulled the page. I initially queried whether this was because the studio had accidentally given away the game (spoiler: it had), had already filled the position and forgotten to nix it, or realized that it had made a typo with the whole UE thing.
Now, Riot has shown its cards. As from the next TFT set, Set 18, it is indeed shifting over from Hextech Engine to Unreal. The wilderness-themed set’s first few patches will remain on the League client, but then the game is moving out of its family home, and into a brand new standalone condo. That’s right, after seven years we’re finally getting our own client – I can’t believe this is my life.jpg.
Riot’s reasoning for shifting to Unreal Engine is two-fold. “As we continued to grow TFT, we realized we needed something that could continually better the player experience far off into the future in ways that were specific to and for TFT,” Production Lead David Capretto says. Additionally, Capretto notes that building TFT’s own tools and tech in Unreal gives the League team room “to continue to develop their own tech without worrying about impacting systems on TFT.” Fair enough.
Now, this isn’t TFT 2 – not by any means. If anything, we should consider this an evolution. The sneak peeks at the new desktop and mobile clients look great, and I hope the latter feels better to play. TFT Tech Director Gina Hope says Riot’s spent the last couple of years training up the dev team on Unreal, so the transition should hopefully be nice and smooth… hopefully. It’s a grand undertaking to say the least, so props to them for their graft.
So, how’s this all going to work? According to Senior TFT Engineering Manager Ken Zheng, the first patch of the Unreal era will be larger than usual, with mobile players having their existing TFT app replaced with the Unreal one; you won’t have to uninstall anything. Beyond that, it’s back to normal size patches, and the PC client will launch a few patches in, as previously noted.
Hope says it’s going to take some time for the true potential of TFT on Unreal to be realized, “even past the next few sets.” Excitingly, the new tech means Riot “can start digging into a huge backlog of awesome ideas that we just haven’t had the time or ability to explore.”
With TFT now untethered from League, the runway’s clear for Riot to go all-in on League Next. It’s all change, and it’s certainly the right direction. Riot has published a TFT Unreal migration FAQ, so check that out if you have any burning questions. Don’t worry, though, your RP and cosmetics will carry across, so your wallet is safe. At least, until the next cute chibi rolls around.
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