League of Legends Classic: Release Date, What’s New, and What Else We Know

Riot Games has announced League of Legends Classic—a special mode inspired by the game’s older patches. It will feature a reduced number of champions, restore their old abilities, and bring back the map, rune system, leveling, and more. In this post, we’ve compiled everything known about League of Legends Classic: the release date, changes, and the developers’ thoughts.

League of Legends Classic is a new official mode from Riot Games that recreates early versions of League of Legends. It will feature older versions of champions, the classic rune and mastery system, old items, the map’s visual style, and other mechanics that have been removed or reworked in recent years.

However, Riot clarified that this is not an exact replica of any single season. Instead, the developers plan to combine elements from different eras of classic League of Legends into a single mode. They noted that the main content of the version will be based on Season 3.

Compared to the modern version of League of Legends, Classic will feature:

According to Riot, the mode is being created primarily for players who want to play the old League of Legends again. The idea came about after years of requests from the community and numerous discussions about how much the game has changed over the past 15 years.

The developers also note that they are still deciding which specific era of the game to use as a basis, since different players associate nostalgia with different seasons. They have chosen Season 3 as the foundation, but will also borrow some elements from other major patches. Going forward, they will conduct surveys and add content to the game based on requests from old-school players.

Riot officially confirmed the mode’s existence in late June 2026. The mode will officially become available in the game on July 29 with Patch 26.15—all players will be able to try it out.

Since this is a game mode within League of Legends, it is expected to be available on PC. Players with existing accounts will be able to log in as usual, while newcomers will need to create an account and install the client.