How Often Does League of Legends Update and Why?

Live-service experiences have been a part of the videogame industry for a while, as players look for worlds to lose themselves in and make part of their own home. With continuous updates, these sorts of titles can keep being relevant for years to come, straying from the one-and-done experience that has been the staple of the industry for years.

Updates are the pillar of live-service, as this keeps the gameplay engaging for players, keeps it fair for everyone, and irons out issues that make it unplayable. With some gamers spending thousands of hours in the experiences, these have to be kept up-to-date, remaining interesting for newcomers and veterans alike.

For League of Legends, this comes in the form of balance updates launching every so often. This includes buffs and nerfs to champions, items, and systems alike, which are targeted at strong and weak champions that are over- and under-performing in their respective roles.

These come in the form of updates launching every two weeks, which we cover as part of our League of Legends update overviews to take a look at what changes happened where. The patch notes give some context for the changes and additions, which is a great form of communication from Riot Games towards the players.

The same release cadence is seen for updates that are part of League of Legends' permanent game mode roster. Currently comprised of ARAM, Arena, and ARAM: Mayhem, these game modes get individual updates to keep the gameplay fair for even the casual players in these game modes.

Usually, there aren't major changes made in the game modes, but instead flat percent buffs and nerfs to specific elements, areas, or augments. For instance, instead of increasing or decreasing the damage of certain abilities, a champion might see a flat % damage change across their entire kit, to keep it easy to inform players of the game modes.

In ARAM, this is informed to summoners in a special buff present only in casual modes. Each of the stats is specifically detailed to keep players informed on what type of adjustments have been made to the characters, which is a great bit of information for those who want to take the casual modes a bit more seriously.

There are also hotfixes for whenever something is released, and it's just straight-up broken. This has, historically, happened with new League of Legends champions releasing, as new characters have a tendency to release a bit over-tuned when they leave the public beta environment, and a quick hotfix can be launched to tweak numbers and keep the game fair.

More complicated, however, are the major Season and Act updates that League of Legends is doing as part of the new tri-Seasonal approach to the MOBA. Every year consists of three Seasons, and each Season consists of two Acts.

There aren't specific set times or durations for these. For instance, during the 2026 Season 2: Pandemonium, we saw a Season that was much shorter than the others, to give room for a bigger season at the end of the year, meaning that there isn't one hard and fast rule to follow.

The first Season of the year comes with major gameplay changes that shake up the meta, while the following Seasons and Acts make smaller adjustments based on the Seasonal theme. It's a complex system meant to keep the gameplay interesting year-on-year, and have players coming back and engaging with it, even if a Season was particularly harsh on their favourite champions, lanes, and more.