League of Legends Classic is real: "This was the right time"

League of Legends Classic is official. We weren't really supposed to know yet, but Riot Games had a bit of a slip-up and accidentally leaked a significant enough chunk of it onto the PBE that it was impossible to keep pretending. Instead, the developer did the best thing it possibly could: embrace the meme, and drop an incredible LoL Classic update video featuring Executive Producer Paul "Pabro' Bellezza and Head of League Studio Andrei 'Meddler' van Roon. "I mean, everyone else seemed to be announcing it," van Roon jokes, "so we figured we'd get in on the action."

Rumors about League of Legends Classic have been circling for quite some time now. As someone who got into the game during its early years, back when I was in uni and still had the sort of free time needed to learn a MOBA from scratch, I've certainly got my rose-tinted nostalgia glasses for the era. LoL Classic promises a return to those 'good old days' before we had literally hundreds of champions at our disposal. Remember classic Runes, or the old Summoner Mastery trees? Oh, to hold them in my hands again, one more time.

Meddler reveals that Riot's original plan was to put out its League Classic teaser video just ahead of the upcoming MSI Finals on Sunday July 12. However, he then acknowledges via Reddit that "Given we leaked a lot onto PBE today we figured better to just start the train rolling properly." The resulting dev update is an incredible bit, with Pabro playing the part of a manic researcher, complete with scattered pinboard and red string. "When is it, you know? Let me ask you this, Andrei: What is League to you?"

Pabro grows increasingly erratic (Meddler notes that "he let slip he'd done a little bit of theater in college"). "Two Shens in the game! Is it OG Beta when there were 40 champions? Look at Lux - look at the way she used to look." Meddler strokes his chin thoughtfully; "I mean, I would kind of like to play old Graves again. What would you call this thing if we did it, though?" A few answers are tossed around, and then it comes. "League… Classic."

So what does it actually mean? The leaked PBE details showed more than just the original League roster, and Meddler confirms in that Reddit thread that it's "not just the original 40" that we're dealing with, although he says you'll have to wait a bit longer for the full lineup. Graves, of course, will be among them (and notably didn't appear in the leaks, implying that you shouldn't take what you might see floating around online as the final version).

There will be old gameplay kits. "I'm going to hold off on gameplay specifics generally for now," Meddler adds, "want to see exactly how much we leaked and how much we can still hold as something to reveal next month." The PBE release did point to both old-style Runes and the Summoner Mastery system making a return, although again, nothing is set in stone. Meddler remarks that Riot is willing to change things as it goes. "We'll always do some contingency planning in case we're wrong about some of our assumptions and need to make adjustments post launch."

Meddler admits that having the big moment spoiled hurts. "Not going to lie, little grumpy we got so close to the planned reveal and then leaked some stuff at the last minute. But bigger picture, not a big deal, and we do some contingency planning in case things like this happen." He notes that League Classic will take place in the same client, with "modern tech under the hood," and therefore will have the 2026 LoL system requirements.

"It has meant some extra work," he says of the integration. "In some cases we were able to resurrect old client functionality, in others we had to rebuild it." As for why now, he simply explains, "We figured this was the right time for Classic (celebrate the OG days before looking to the future)."

The full League Classic reveal is set for Saturday July 11 at 11pm PDT, which is Sunday July 12 at 2am EDT / 7am BST / 8am CEST. More news on League Next will be unveiled at Worlds in October.