Riot Games has announced that League of Legends Classic, the nostalgia-focused mode it launched earlier this year, will go offline in January 2027. The current Classic season will be its last, according to an update reported by PC Gamer.
Classic stripped out most of the champions and kits added to League since 2013, reverted Summoner's Rift to an older version of the map, and promised to bring back returning champions at a faster pace than the original release schedule. The concept drew criticism from parts of the League community, and in August former League esports player Alex "Xpecial" Chu offered his view on why players used to the modern game might be slow to take it up.
At this point though, most have gone back to other parts of League.
Riot said it will "put Classic back in the box for now", with the goal of bringing it back, likely as an event mode with adjustments and additions. The company also said it will share more in the future about what it learned from the run, including where it got Classic right, where it could have gone further, and where sticking too closely to the past may have held the experience back.
Players will receive refunds for Classic content made obsolete by the closure. Champion releases continue until the shutdown: at least seven more are due, with Mordekaiser, Yorick, Hecarim and Lucian arriving in update 26.21 and Volibear, Urgot and Udyr following in later updates.
