League of Legends' Strangest Year: Voice Chat, a Throwback Mode and the Road to League Next
In 2026 Riot gave League in-game voice chat, a 'Classic' mode with old champion kits, a standalone TFT client and only one new champion, because most of the team is building League Next. Here's the year so far, and what's coming in 2027.
League of Legends is seventeen years old, topped Korea's PC bang charts yet again in 2025, and is still changing in ways nobody expected. 2026 might be its strangest year yet.
Riot spent the year adding features players have asked for, and some they didn't: in-game voice chat, a nostalgia mode called League Classic, and a standalone client for Teamfight Tactics. Meanwhile, most of the development team is working on League Next, a sweeping overhaul planned for 2027. That's why 2026 gets only one new champion.
Team Voice arrives, carefully
The headline feature of the autumn is Team Voice, League's first built-in voice chat for teammates. It launched with Patch 26.20 on October 7, alongside Season 3 Act 2, but only in North America and Oceania so far. It includes noise cancellation, voice modulation and behaviour tools, and it's limited to players at Honor Level 3 or higher.
Riot also added voice skins that change how you sound, for anonymity. The first ones are free; later ones will be paid. It's a cautious rollout for a game with a reputation, and Korea isn't on the list yet.
League Classic: old kits, new fun
League Classic brings back older versions of champions, and Riot has been adding to it patch by patch. Patch 26.21 added classic Mordekaiser, Yorick, Hecarim and Lucian and reverted Kassadin's nerfs; Patch 26.22 added classic Volibear, Swain and Elise and raised Classic Pass tokens by 50% per match for the rest of the mode's run. A Demacia-themed update with Poppy, Galio, Xin Zhao, Fiora and Shyvana was also announced.
There's chaos for those who want it, too. ARAM: Mayhem adds augments such as "BEES!" and "Weapon of Destiny", and rotates maps like Butcher's Bridge in and out.
Why only one champion?
In March, Riot's Andrei "Meddler" van Roon confirmed that the Season 2 champion would be 2026's only new champion, with most of the team focused on League Next. It's a big change for a game that once released champions every few weeks.
So what is League Next? Riot outlined it in December 2025 in a video titled "A look at some of our plans for League after 2026". Meddler, head of the studio, described "a brand-new around-game client that's fully integrated with the in-game experience". Executive producer Paul "Pabro" Bellezza promised to revamp Summoner's Rift "with entirely new visuals, and a bit of new gameplay", and to overhaul the new-player experience. Bloomberg reported the project as the biggest update in League's history, aimed at making the game more welcoming.
What it means for Korea
In Korean PC bangs, none of this has shaken League's grip. In 2025, League took 36.01% of all PC bang playtime, more than the next three games combined (FC Online, PUBG and Valorant). In late October 2026, League's PC bang playtime rose 4.4% in a week, helped by the World Championship and Patch 26.21 (our PC bang chart story).
Why it matters
Most games this old would be in maintenance mode. League is doing the opposite: experimenting with nostalgia modes and voice chat while rebuilding its client and map behind the scenes. 2026 is a holding pattern with a purpose. If League Next delivers in 2027, it could be the best moment in a decade to bring a friend into the game; if it stumbles, Riot will be rebuilding the foundation of its biggest product in public.