Craig Robinson is an experienced gaming and esports writer with nearly a decade of coverage experience since 2015. With a background in software engineering, he combines his journalistic expertise with a strong understanding of technical SEO and web development fundamentals. He’s passionate about covering MMO games, competitive esports, and crafting guides that help players get the most out of their favorite titles. He's been writing about gaming and esports for over 10 years, which started as for fun project during university. He has since developed his skill set, contributing to newsrooms coverage of key games and event, and blending evergreen content strategy and a solid grasp of content marketing fundamentals. His work has appeared in Esports News UK, Gamer Guides, theEscpaist, and VideoGamer, and he now contributes to Gamehub's review team. When he’s not writing, Craig can usually be found running, at the gym, or tinkering with coding projects to keep his GitHub active.
Classic LoL now actually looks like Classic with new base skin changes on PBE and Katarina switch-up
With the reveal of League of Legends Classic, it got boomers like me thinking nostalgically about the game. Yet when the gameplay actually came out, it was a disjointed mess of old and clunky kits, mixed eras, and the VGU champion models were also looking out of place.
Then came Riot’s rundown on LoL Classic, announcing Classic skins in the shop with champions running around in post-VGU visuals, well out of the era the mode is supposed to represent.
Naturally, it led to a massive backlash about Classic not really being Classic, even with Riot putting forward a reasonable argument about different eras. The fact is, it looked like a bad job done poorly, and it was an even bigger kick in the teeth that it was putting classic skins behind store unlocks to monetise the nostalgia.
All of this was revealed in Riot’s big Classic deep dive dev blog, talking about how the mode works.
Hope came yesterday morning, though, with the likes of Necrit and others spotting subtle changes. We reached out to Riot about it and were issued a response, along with many others, in the form of a new vlog on X.
Classic Skins will be the default in League Classic – what a headline
It seems Riot is happy to listen to feedback. The changes should help get the tone right in a game mode that is supposed to take players back to how things were. More champions that don’t yet have classic skins will also be getting them added over time, so the details should gradually get ironed out.
It’s a bit silly to expect players to work through a battle pass or store purchases to get skins that should have been the baseline for the mode in the first place. That said, it is great to see the designers respond to community sentiment, recognise that it was having a negative impact and make swift changes. The urge to monetize returning nostalgia fans is understandable, but not at the expense of the core mode’s appeal.
Hopefully, Riot continues to make good changes while still finding valid ways to generate revenue from the mode. Or just get people into the main game and buy skins there instead. That works too.
Katarina is getting her Season 2 kit restored in League Classic
One of the more notable PBE changes flagged in the vlog is Katarina’s kit. Riot has been reconsidering the 2015 cut-off point for champion kits and abilities. It acknowledged that a strict 2015 boundary doesn’t always land on the most iconic or beloved classic version of a champion.
For Katarina specifically, Riot went back further than the standard cut-off, opting to restore her pre-2012 kit design. Her older design is simply more iconic to the community, and many players actively preferred how she played in that earlier era.
The earlier Katarina kit should be visible on the PBE either now or very shortly after the vlog went live. You can play Classic early, by the way, by signing up for the PBE. It is also a positive signal, more broadly, that Riot is willing to look at individual champions case-by-case rather than applying a blanket cut-off year, which could open the door for other champions to receive similar treatment if the community makes a strong enough case.
There’s still work to be done. Bring back Twitch’s 50 second long pure invisibility, you cowards.
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With the reveal of League of Legends Classic, it got boomers like me thinking nostalgically about the game. Yet when the gameplay actually came out, it was a disjointed mess…
