Riot quickly backpedals on paid old-school skins in League of Legends Classic after backlash
Overview & Key Takeaways
"Let's talk about the elephant on the rift."
League of Legends Classic, the new mode which remixes the MOBA by deleting most of the roster and restoring all sorts of old builds and character kits from 2013 and prior, has hit Riot's public test environment.
It's been met with mixed reception since then, in part due to its approach to old visuals—when the PBE version launched, players had modern character models, voice work, and spell effects by default, with "classic skins" unlockable with earned tokens or real money. A thread from user prime_desire with over 6,000 upvotes on the League of Legends subreddit called the mode "League 'not so' Classic," saying "honestly I would be embarrassed to release something like this. Charging for Classic Skins is genuinely wild."
That was reversed within a few days, with Riot's Brian "FeralPony" Feeney addressing feedback concerning the skins and more in a video blog July 16. "Feedback received," he said. "If you're on PBE, you probably already noticed that all classic skins are unlocked for all champions that have one." They've since been made the default option, replacing their respective champions' modern appearances.
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He also addressed negative feedback regarding the mode's "greatest hits" approach, clarifying why Riot decided to mix a bunch of old patches together rather than pick a single patch from the game's history and stick to it.
In short, player surveys were all over the place and Riot wants to cast as wide a net as possible. "The answers were almost identical. League was classic the year they started playing, League was best the year after they started, and League was too old before they started." That said, changes will be made as players vote on new patches once the mode hits standard servers.
Other Riot devs have been on social media assuring players the mode is being changed to look even older by default. "It's been fun to basically undo my years of work," said senior VFX artist Sirhaian in a post on X.
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