Kling Version History: From 1.0 in 2024 to the 4.0 Announcement

How to read this history

The still above is from Starfall Command, an episode produced on this site; whatever model rendered its segments, the version history of that model will keep moving.

Versions age quickly into folklore. Most “history of Kling” pages mix dates from press releases, store listings and memory, and by the time you read them the newest entry is already stale. This page separates the two kinds of evidence:

• Maker's own material for the 3.0 and 4.0 entries: a press release and Kling's own pages.
• Third-party timelines, marked as such, for 1.0 and the 2.x series, where we could not reach a first-party page.

Where a date is third-party, the text says so. Where something could not be confirmed, it is in the “not verified” section rather than in the timeline.

The timeline

Kling 1.0, June 2024

The line starts with Kling 1.0 in June 2024. This date comes from third-party timelines — fal.ai's explainer among them — rather than a first-party page we could still reach, so treat the month as well-attested rather than exact to the day.

What matters about 1.0 for reading later announcements is the baseline: short clips from text or a single image, with no audio. Every capability discussed on this page — multi-shot takes, synchronised dialogue, consistent characters, keyframes — is a later addition to that starting point.

The 2.x series

The 2.x generation is where Kling started splitting a model into editions and adding sound. Two details, both from third-party roundups (Atlas Cloud's guide):

• 2.1 arrived in Standard, Pro and Master editions — the first sign of the tiering that later turns up everywhere in AI video.
• 2.6 added native audio synchronisation — sound generated with the picture rather than added after it.

We did not find first-party pages dating either release, so this section stays at that level of detail rather than repeating exact dates we cannot trace. The audio work matters historically because it is the thread that runs into 3.0's per-speaker dialogue and 4.0's stereo.

3.0 and 3.0 Omni, February 2026

Kling 3.0 was announced in February 2026 — social posts on February 4 and a press release dated February 6 — and it was the release that turned Kling from a clip generator into something closer to a shot-sequence generator.

The announced generation, all four models (Video 3.0, Video 3.0 Omni, Image 3.0 and Image 3.0 Omni), included:

• Multi-shot takes: a 3–15 second generation with up to 6 shot changes, each shot carrying its own duration, framing, angle, content and camera movement, and an AI Director handling shot-reverse-shot and cross-cutting.
• Native audio: dialogue generated with the video in English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Spanish, with accents and per-speaker assignment.
• Reference modes: element (subject) reference, multi-image reference and video element reference, with Character Identity 3.0 for keeping a face and Element Voice Control for binding a voice to it.
• On-screen text that stays legible in motion.

The details, with sources, are in Kling 3.0 multi-shot and native audio.

3.0 Turbo: reported, not confirmed

Some third-party blogs describe a further 3.0 Turbo or Omni-engine release dated to mid-2026. We could not confirm that release on any first-party page, so it is deliberately not in the timeline above and carries no date here. If Kling's own release pages pick it up, it belongs in that table; until then it stays a claim from roundups.

4.0 and 4.0 Flash, announced September 28, 2026

The current generation was announced on September 28, 2026: Kling 4.0 and the lighter Kling 4.0 Flash. The headline numbers, all as announced:

• Longer takes: 3–30 seconds in one generation, with extension to a maximum of 2 minutes marked as coming soon. Flash: 3–20 seconds.
• More resolution: 720p, 1080p and 4K, with 10-bit HDR at the top two marked coming soon. Flash: 720p only.
• Frame control: first and last frame plus up to 10 keyframes at positions on the timeline. Flash's announcement does not include them.
• References: Omni Reference, up to 15 per task across images, videos, subjects and a voice.
• Audio and editing: stereo with tighter lip sync, 9 languages, and an editing pass over up to 5 input clips.

Flash opened to a limited group of creators on announcement day; the full version was announced for October with no date, and as of October 15, 2026 we had found no report of it going live and no published pricing for either model.

The full breakdown is in Kling 4.0: what was announced, and the two versions are compared in Kling 4.0 vs Kling 4.0 Flash.

Why versions matter when you follow a guide

Advice written for one generation ages badly against the next. A guide that says “up to 15 seconds” is describing 3.0; one that says “up to 30 seconds” is describing the 4.0 announcement. Both were correct when written, and neither tells you what is running today.

Three habits keep you out of dated advice: check the version number in the text, check the date on the page, and when a page quotes specs, look for whether it says announced or measured. For anything past the announcement stage, the maker's own release page is the only source that settles it.

What this page does not claim

• Exact dates for 1.0 and the 2.x releases. The third-party timelines agree on the shape (1.0 in mid-2024, 2.1 and 2.6 in the series that followed) but we did not reach first-party pages for them.
• 3.0 Turbo. Reported by third parties, not confirmed by Kling; no date given here.
• Anything about 4.0 past the announcement. No measured specs, no pricing, no release confirmation — nothing of that kind exists yet, as far as we could find.

Sources

• Kling: 4.0 model release page (kling.ai) — the September 28, 2026 announcement.
• Kling: Video 3.0 Omni multi-shot and native-audio guide (kling.ai blog) — the 3.0 generation's capabilities.
• Bernama: Kling 3.0 press release (February 6, 2026) — the 3.0 launch and model list.
• fal.ai: What is Kling 4.0 (explainer) — dates the 1.0 release to June 2024.
• Atlas Cloud: Kling AI guide — the 2.x details (2.1 editions, 2.6 native audio), third-party.
• Runware: Kling 4 specification table — the announced 4.0 and Flash specifications.

Kling is a trademark of its owner and is named here only to identify the product; SceneMixer is not affiliated with it. Where a date rests on third-party material, this page says so; specifications are quoted as announced.

FAQ

Updated October 15, 2026