Riot Games has announced that it is planning to end League of Legends Classic service in January 2027. If the information that League of Legends Classic even exists comes as a surprise to you, that might be because it was only released this July. After just three months, it seems like the game's audience has left for better things.
In an official post on the League of Legends website, Riot revealed it would be "making some changes" to Classic with the recently released Season 3 Act 2. That change is namely that the team behind the game is preparing to shut down service. Riot wrote, "League Classic will be available through the end of Season 3 of 2026 and then end its current run." That means January 2027.
As for why Classic is being killed, Riot revealed that "We’ve seen a lot of players have fun revisiting the olden days with Classic. At this point though, most have gone back to other parts of League." That isn't great news for Classic, but it must be reassuring that players are still sticking around in the League ecosystem rather than ditching the game entirely. This is almost an inverse of what World of Warcraft experienced when it first launched its Classic mode, which brought many lapsed players back who had been dissatisfied with the current iteration of WoW.
Riot isn't ready to shut the door on Classic forever, though. "Our goal is to bring Classic back in the future, likely as an event mode with adjustments and additions." The developer also noted that it will share more about what it learned from Classic, both the successes and failures. This will hopefully make any future iteration of Classic that much stronger.
While the end is in sight now, Riot isn't entirely washing its hands of Classic. Mordekaiser, Yorick, Hecarim, and Lucian will join the game as champions in patch 26.21. More will continue to be added through 26.23, including Volibear, Urgot, and Udyr.
The developer is issuing refunds for Classic-specific content that will no longer be useable, with the Act 2 Classic Battle Pass only having a free track. Going forward, the Classic store will only contain champions, runes, and rune pages. The big downside for Classic players, however, is that you won't be able to play the game whenever you want anymore.
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