Revealed as part of TFT's 2026 roadmap, the switch will see the game leave the Hextech Engine, Riot's in-house engine which TFT has shared with League of Legends since its launch in 2019, for Unreal Engine, the widely used engine built by Epic Games. The change arrives alongside the wilderness-themed Set 18.

According to the developers, the move was made for TFT's long-term future rather than for any immediate gains. In a dev video and blog post, the team also stressed that the change is not a sequel or reboot, describing it as "the same game, with the same team behind it, that's learned an all new engine."

Riot said running on Unreal Engine will let the team build dedicated tools and technology for TFT, while stopping it from clashing with League of Legends' own updates, allowing both titles to develop independently. The studio said players shouldn't notice major changes in Set 18, with Unreal integration set to ramp up gradually across future sets.

A standalone PC client is also on the way. While Set 18 will launch on the existing Hextech client, TFT will follow with a dedicated client four patches later, on October 9th. Both Set 18 and the new client will run extended Public Beta Environment (PBE) testing periods, which the team said reflects the higher number of bugs it expects from its first set on a new engine. Set 18's four-week PBE begins on July 14th.

What the switch means for players

The first Set 18 patch will be a larger download than usual on PC, while mobile players will have their existing TFT app automatically replaced with an Unreal-based version, with no uninstall required. Riot said later patches should return to their normal size.

Players won't need to make a new account, and their Riot account login will stay the same. RP, or Riot Points, the premium currency shared across League of Legends and TFT, along with TFT-specific currencies and cosmetics, will carry over to the new engine. Preferred settings and favourited Loadout items, however, will be reset during the migration.

The move follows a similar transition for another Riot title. In 2025, the studio upgraded its tactical shooter VALORANT to Unreal Engine 5, a change Riot said would not noticeably affect performance. TFT, which launched in 2019, has grown into one of the leading titles in the auto battler genre, with the franchise also spanning TFT Mobile and regional releases such as Golden Spatula in Southeast Asia.