In a recent interview with MonteCristo, he revealed that Riot once planned to upgrade League of Legends’ game engine for 2025.
League of Legends, launched in 2009, was built on a custom engine by Riot Games, which was a common practice back then. Modern engines like Unreal, Unity, and Godot weren’t as advanced or didn’t offer the specialized features developers needed at the time, so creating a custom engine was typical.
Despite League’s continued popularity for over 15 years, one thing has stayed the same: its engine. While the current engine allows the game to run on older, lower-end PCs, it also causes development headaches. The League client is notorious for bugs and poor performance. Recently, removing the old Skarner model even caused major issues with the game.
Riot’s use of public engines for newer games like Wild Rift and Valorant shows they have shifted from their custom engine approach. According to MonteCristo, Riot had internal plans to upgrade League’s engine by 2025, even testing some demos. This update could have been a game-changer for League.
However, Riot Meddler downplayed the speculation in response to a Reddit thread, calling the previous statements about the 2025 update an “oversell.” He clarified that while changes are coming, it won’t be an overhaul or immediate transformation.
As of now, the engine upgrade seems to be delayed or possibly canceled, likely due to staffing shortages or technical challenges, as MonteCristo suggested. Though an engine update may still be possible, it may not arrive until after 2025.
In the meantime, Riot has promised significant additions in 2025, and players remain hopeful that the engine changes, if only delayed, will eventually arrive in the years to come.