Popular MOBA League of Legends was briefly unplayable over the past 24 hours, as the digital licence for the game expired.
The game’s digital certificate, which verifies a program’s authenticity within a set period of time, was valid from the 7th January 2016 up until the 4th January 2026. As such, as clocks flicked over to Sunday around the world, the certificate was made void and the game made unbootable.
There was, however, a clever workaround some players discovered. By turning your system clock back before this expiration date, League of Legends could be tricked into working yet again. This trick could lead to other apps breaking, but nonetheless was a salve for especially keen LoL fanatics.
As of writing, this problem has thankfully been fixed, though it does stand out as a fairly funny example of the house of cards digital services usually are. A Digicert survey last year found that almost half of questioned companies experienced an outage due to digital certificate expiration
League of Legends itself is on the brink of a vast overhaul, with a whole new version of the game set to be released sometime in 2027. More information on that is set to be revealed in the coming month or so, but given the scope of these changes it’s probably a good idea to get a new set of certifications ready to go. The game has also found itself home to a new seasonal structure, aiming to keep things fresh for regular players.
This period of revitalisation for League of Legends comes following a rough spell, as Riot Games went through two waves of layoffs in 2024, insisting it was a “necessity”, saying its costs had “grown to the point where they’re unsustainable… [leaving] no room for experimentation or failure”.