Riot Games has given the biggest overhaul in League of Legends history a name. The project known until now as League Next will arrive as League of Legends: New Dawn, Riot confirmed in a two-minute teaser shown during the Worlds 2026 grand final. It promises a modernised client, a visually rebuilt Summoner’s Rift, gameplay changes and new ways to play champions. Riot says the full reveal comes in January, with the release itself later in 2027.
The reveal landed during the final itself, which Bilibili Gaming went on to win 3-1 against Gen.G at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, with Knight named Finals MVP. BLG reached the Worlds 2026 grand final by ending T1’s bid for a fourth straight title, and the full bracket is on our Worlds 2026 wiki page. Riot had promised in July that Worlds would include “a little peek” at its plans for 2027 and beyond, according to its dev update at the time.
Riot’s teaser promises a new client, a rebuilt Summoner’s Rift and a 2027 release
The teaser features executive producer Paul “Pabro” Bellezza and Andrei “Meddler” van Roon, head of the League studio. “The client, for one, has to be better,” Bellezza says, before confirming that “next year, we’re releasing a modernised client.” Van Roon then widens the scope. “A client isn’t enough,” he says, adding that Riot is “updating a lot” across the game.
The footage backs that up with a first look at redesigned jungle camps, objectives and environment art on Summoner’s Rift. Ahri, Jhin, Sett, Lux, Blitzcrank, Leona and Volibear all appear across the cinematic and gameplay shots. Riot has not yet explained the gameplay changes behind those visuals, however. Some viewers have read the footage as showing new entrances to the Dragon pit, but Riot has not confirmed any change to objectives.
A few early reports said New Dawn launches in January, but that is not what Riot has announced. The description on the official teaser says the “full reveal” comes in January, with the “release later in 2027”. Players can already sign up for updates on Riot’s New Dawn site, although it currently carries little beyond the name and a subscription form.
New Dawn rebuilds League from the inside instead of replacing it with a sequel
New Dawn is an update to the existing game, not the League of Legends 2 that players have speculated about for years. Bloomberg first reported the project in December 2025, saying most of the League team had moved onto it. Riot responded within a day with a video in which Bellezza and van Roon said the answer to a sequel “remains, no”. They set out the plan instead: retire the current launcher, build the navigation client into the game engine, overhaul Summoner’s Rift and redesign runes and other pre-game systems.
The client change is the most technical item on that list. Today, the client players use to queue, buy skins and pick champions runs as a separate program from the game itself, a design that dates from 2016, when Riot began replacing its old Adobe Air launcher. Building those menus into the engine would remove the hand-off between two programs that players sit through before every match, although Riot has not yet shown it working. A new client was also the first item Riot listed in its January dev update, alongside a revamped Summoner’s Rift and a new player experience.
The scale invites comparison with Riot’s past rebuilds. Summoner’s Rift last received a full visual update in 2014, and runes and masteries were merged into Runes Reforged in 2017. Van Roon put the goal plainly in the teaser. “We want League to stand the test of time and be a game that’s here for many years to come,” he says.
Riot is pulling League in two directions in the same year. In July it launched League of Legends Classic, a Season 3-style Summoner’s Rift with 60 champions on their old kits, built into the current client. New Dawn points the other way, towards a game that looks and plays like a modern release. Riot has not said how Classic will work once the client is rebuilt.
Engine, hardware and skins remain open questions until January
Riot has confirmed far less than the teaser suggests. It has not said whether New Dawn uses a new rendering engine or an upgrade of the existing one, and it has not published minimum PC specifications. That matters for a game whose modest hardware demands have long let it run on older laptops and in internet cafés. Mac support, which League offers today, has not been addressed either.
The other big unknown is what happens to players’ collections and progression. League has more than 170 champions, and Riot has not said how existing skins will be adapted to the new visual style. Because New Dawn is an update and not a new game, players would expect to keep their accounts, but Riot has given no detail on ranked, rune pages or progression. Nothing has been said about Wild Rift, the separate mobile version, either.
The January reveal is where Riot has promised those answers, and the competitive calendar will need them too. Pro teams will have to adjust if a rebuilt Summoner’s Rift lands in the middle of the 2027 season, and Riot has not said where in the year the release falls. League of Legends launched in October 2009, and Bloomberg described New Dawn as the most significant overhaul since then.
