League of Legends players were hit by an unexpected disruption late last night. What initially looked like a routine server issue or regional outage quickly turned into something far more unusual, as players around the world found themselves unable to log into the game with no immediate explanation.
The cause turned out to be surprisingly simple and slightly embarrassing. Riot Games had failed to renew a digital security certificate used by the League of Legends client. That certificate, originally issued back in 2016, officially expired on January 4, 2025, which prevented the game from passing its security verification checks.
As a temporary workaround, players discovered that rolling their system clock back to a date when the certificate was still valid allowed them to log in and play. While effective, the solution was unofficial and clearly not intended as a long-term fix.
Riot Games moved quickly once the issue was identified, renewing the expired certificate and restoring normal access to the game shortly afterward. Still, the incident raised eyebrows across the community. For a live-service title with millions of daily players, being taken offline by an expired certificate is not something fans expect to see.
The situation served as a reminder that even the largest live-service games rely on countless background systems and that a single overlooked detail can briefly bring everything to a halt.
Did this outage affect you? And do you think a technical oversight like this is understandable, or should it never happen at this scale? Share your thoughts in the comments. For more gaming news, updates, and industry stories, follow us on X and stay tuned VGNW for everything happening across the gaming world.
What caused the League of Legends outage?
The outage was triggered by an expired digital security certificate that the game client relies on for verification.
