League of Legends Open Beta Lands on the Mac

The incredibly popular multiplayer game League of Legends has arrived on the Mac. Existing players can download the game directly, while new users will need to create an account.

The free-to-play League of Legends was originally released in 2009 for the PC. Inspired by the Warcraft III map Defense of the Ancients, players compete in 5v5 (or 3v3) battles controlling a single character. Each week there's a rotation of available characters to play as, and the game is monetized by allowing players to pay to permanently unlock these characters as well as cosmetic skins for them.

League of Legends is also one of the most popular eSports games and many events are streamed live with hundreds of thousands of viewers. Prizes for the highest level leagues can run into the millions of dollars and each team has their own personalities and fan followings.

Leagueoflegends

Going native on Mac has been a big goal for us, and we’re really excited to offer the same experience across both platforms. And just in case you’re still skeptical, we managed to wrangle an endorsement from this business-savvy professional. We’re confident you all know that this man games as he pleases!

The Mac client does everything that the PC client does, meaning you’ll get all future features, bug fixes and new content on the same schedule as PC players, but on your native OS. The Cross-Platform team will also continue working diligently to smash any Mac bugs that surface during the open beta.

League of Legends had a private Mac beta client that was scrapped a few years ago, and rumblings of the game returning to OS X have been all over the internet for months now. League of Legends' payment model is designed to be very different from the timer-based freemium games like Real Racing 3. Users can play as much as they want without paying, but they are limited to the characters available that week. Alternatively, gamers can pay between $5 and $10 to permanently unlock a playable character or players can earn in-game currency through gameplay.

To mark the release of the Mac beta, League of Legends has released the iBlitzcrank skin for the character Blitzcrank as well as this promotional video that is full of inside jokes for existing fans:

Popular Stories

New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18

20 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18.2

Monday December 16, 2024 8:55 am PST by
Apple released iOS 18.2 in the second week of December, bringing the second round of Apple Intelligence features to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 models. This update brings several major advancements to Apple's AI integration, including completely new image generation tools and a range of Visual Intelligence-based enhancements. Apple has added a handful of new non-AI related feature controls as...
iphone 16 apple intelligence

Apple Drops Plans for iPhone Hardware Subscription Service

Wednesday December 18, 2024 11:39 am PST by
Apple is no longer planning to launch a hardware subscription service that would let customers "subscribe" to get a new iPhone each year, reports Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Gurman first shared rumors about Apple's work on a hardware subscription service back in 2022, and at the time, he said that Apple wanted to develop a simple system that would allow customers to pay a monthly fee to gain...
iPhone 17 Pro Dual Tone Feature 1

iPhone 17 Pro Rumored to Stick With 'Triangular' Camera Design

Wednesday December 18, 2024 2:36 am PST by
Contrary to recent reports, the iPhone 17 Pro will not feature a horizontal camera layout, according to the leaker known as "Instant Digital." In a new post on Weibo, the leaker said that a source has confirmed that while the appearance of the back of the iPhone 17 Pro has indeed changed, the layout of the three cameras is "still triangular," rather than the "horizontal bar spread on the...
elevation lab airtag battery

Your AirTag's Battery Will Last for Up to 10 Years With Elevation Lab's New TimeCapsule Enclosure

Wednesday December 18, 2024 10:05 am PST by
Elevation Lab today announced the launch of TimeCapsule, an innovative and simple solution for increasing the battery life of Apple's AirTag. Priced at $20, TimeCapsule is an AirTag enclosure that houses two AA batteries that offer 14x more battery capacity than the CR2032 battery that the AirTag runs on. It works by attaching the AirTag's upper housing to the built-in custom contact in the...
apple tv 4k yellow bg feature

New Apple TV Rumored to Launch Next Year With These Features

Tuesday December 17, 2024 9:02 am PST by
The current Apple TV 4K was released more than two years ago, so the streaming device is becoming due for a hardware upgrade soon. Fortunately, it was recently rumored that a new Apple TV will launch at some point next year. Below, we recap rumors about the next-generation Apple TV. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman last week reported that Apple has been working on its own combined Wi-Fi and...
blackmagic vision pro

Blackmagic Debuts $30K 3D Camera for Capturing Video for Vision Pro

Monday December 16, 2024 4:17 pm PST by
Blackmagic today announced that its URSA Cine Immersive camera is now available for pre-order, with deliveries set to start late in the first quarter of 2025. Blackmagic says that this is the world's first commercial camera system designed to capture 3D content for the Vision Pro. The URSA Cine Immersive camera was first introduced in June, but it has not been available for purchase until...
mac pro creativity

Apple Launched the Controversial 'Trashcan' Mac Pro 11 Years Ago Today

Thursday December 19, 2024 7:00 pm PST by
Apple launched the controversial "trashcan" Mac Pro eleven years ago today, introducing one of its most criticized designs that persisted through a period of widespread discontentment with the Mac lineup. The redesign took the Mac Pro in an entirely new direction, spearheaded by a polished aluminum cylindrical design that became unofficially dubbed the "trashcan" in the Mac community. All of ...
iPhone 17 Slim Feature

'iPhone 17 Air' With 'Major' Design Changes and 19-Inch MacBook Detailed in New Report

Sunday December 15, 2024 9:47 am PST by
Apple is planning a series of "major design" and "format changes" for iPhones over the next few years, according to The Wall Street Journal's Aaron Tilley and Yang Jie. The paywalled report published today corroborated the widely-rumored "iPhone 17 Air" with an "ultrathin" design that is thinner than current iPhone models. The report did not mention a specific measurement, but previous...

Top Rated Comments

Sky Blue Avatar
154 months ago
never heard of it
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
inket Avatar
154 months ago
never heard of it

It's only the most played video game. I suppose you don't like games at all and that's why you never heard of it; in that case your comment is useless and would invite you to think before commenting.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
dbyway Avatar
154 months ago
YES!!!!!!!!!!! I can finally get rid of my Windows partition!

----------

never heard of it

It's the #1 played game in the entire world... double the amount of players of WoW.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
anzio Avatar
154 months ago
I've been playing league on my mac since December. I got the beta from boompje.net Nothing new here.

This is native. Yours isn't. This is new.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ckelley Avatar
154 months ago
never heard of it

Well thank you so very much for that insight. As for those of us who have... this is great news. Can't wait to give it a go when I get home.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Abyssgh0st Avatar
154 months ago
never heard of it

You've never heard of the most played computer game? You're either not a gamer, or you're browsing under a rock.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)