Expired SSL certificate knocks League of Legends offline for many players

GG Brief Editorial Desk · AI-assisted, source attributed

On January 4, 2026, League of Legends became unavailable for many players after an expired SSL certificate blocked secure connections to Riot Games' servers. The outage duplicated a similar SSL expiry incident that affected the game in 2016. The disruption prevented players from launching or connecting to matches and highlights the operational risk of certificate-management failures for live online services.

• Date and impact: On January 4, 2026, many League of Legends players could not access the game.
• Cause: An expired SSL certificate prevented secure connections to Riot Games' services.
• Historical repeat: The outage mirrored an SSL certificate error that hit League of Legends in 2016, ten years earlier.
• Consequence: Certificate-management failures can directly block player access to live online games and services.