League of Legends has seen a resurgence of players thanks to the return of its Arena mode in May. Like all good things, though, it must eventually come to an end.
Originally introduced in July 2023 with the Soul Fighters summer event, the Arena mode, also known as 2v2v2v2, has been a welcome change from the monotony of your regularly scheduled League. From tier lists to constant updates and even its own ranked system, Riot clearly has big plans for the playlist, and now brings it back semi-regularly for new runs.
Nothing good lasts forever, though, including League Arena (though that may eventually change if enough eager players speak out about the ever-popular gladiator playlist), which means the limited-time mode’s end date is fast approaching.
Here’s when League Arena will close its doors at the end of its latest run.
When will LoL Arena mode end?
Riot has confirmed the League Arena doors will swing shut at 6pm PT on Friday, Sept. 27. It was originally slated to end on Sept. 10 but was extended by just over two weeks after some technical issues took it offline for several days.
Here’s when it will end across major League timezones:
- West Coast U.S. — 6pm PT
- East Coast U.S. — 8pm CT
- EU West — 3am CET
- EU East — 4am MSK
- Korea — 10am KST (Thursday, Sept. 26)
- China — 9am CST (Thursday, Sept. 26)
- Oceania — 11am AEDT (Thursday, Sept. 26)
There are several reasons why League Arena is being shelved in late September. First, this lines up perfectly with the 2024 World Championship events starting, including the return of the Ultimate Spellbook limited-time mode. It makes sense that the Riot developers would want everyone loading into similar playlist matches.
Secondly, the 2025 League preseason is quickly looming up and will ship in Patch 14.24 in early December. Riot needs players on the Rift to test these changes early.
Why is LoL Arena not a permanent mode?
Riot has previously suggested League Arena will not become a permanent game mode, but the developers didn’t give any specific reason why. We can only assume the team wants to keep Summoner’s Rift and Howling Abyss as the title’s focal points without splitting the playerbase too thoroughly with other playlists.
There have been talks behind the scenes about having Arena come back more regularly, especially now that Riot is looking to double-down on LTMs following the huge success of the gladiator mode and the League Swarm playlist that ran earlier in 2024.
“We sent [Arena] out, saw where players wanted to engage, then brought it back to the lab,” Riot Sopebox explained in July. “Our goal’s to get it to that point where it’s sustainable long term.”
For the time being, however, we’ll just have to wait for Arena to come back.
