Riot Is Shelving League of Legends Classic After Six Months

Riot Games will end League Classic’s current run in January 2027, about six months after the throwback mode launched on July 29 with 60 champions and a rebuilt early Summoner’s Rift. The mode stays available through the rest of Season 3, and Riot’s reasoning is that while plenty of players had fun revisiting the early years, most of them have since gone back to the rest of League. The stated goal is to bring Classic back at some point, most likely as an event mode with adjustments and additions, and Riot says it will share more later about where it got Classic right and where sticking too closely to the past held the experience back.

Several regions get a smaller version of Classic starting with Patch 26.21, which is where Season 3 Act II begins. Korea, Latin America North, Latin America South, Taiwan, Vietnam, Turkey, Southeast Asia, Oceania, and Russia are moving to windowed queues, with matchmaking open from 4:00 PM to 12:00 AM server time on weekdays and 10:00 AM to 1:00 AM on weekends. Riot says those regions saw especially strong migration back to modern modes, which left Classic with long queue times and large MMR gaps. Japan and the Middle East and North Africa servers will have custom matches only from the same patch, though Classic custom games remain available at all times in every region.

The Act II Classic Battle Pass ships in 26.21 with a single free track and nothing else, and from that patch onward the Classic store only carries Champions, Runes, and Rune Pages. Riot is also issuing refunds on Classic-specific content that will no longer be usable. Champions will keep arriving through the end of the run, though, with Irelia, Karma, Quinn, Aatrox, and Caitlyn added in 26.20, Mordekaiser, Yorick, Hecarim, and Lucian coming in 26.21, and more each patch through 26.23, including Volibear, Urgot, and Udyr, who finished in the top three of the most recent Council poll.

This is the second Riot project this year to end with refunds offered, after the studio ended active development on 2XKO in August and refunded everything spent on the fighting game. The full Classic update is on the League site, and Riot says the exact queue windows will be confirmed in upcoming patch notes.