author: Miriam Moszczynska
Changes Coming to LoL; First Champion With Major Gameplay Update
Riot Games has shared the character roadmap for the next few months. We received a number of hints about the new heroes that will be coming to LoL, as well as information about a brand new system for overhauling them.
It's fair to say that League of Legends has many a ton of characters to choose from. As we know, not all of them are as popular as others, but Riot Games does not forget about them. From the description of the April roadmap we learned that Aurelion Sol will receive a complete makeover.
Aurelion Sol redesigned
The star dragon was definitely one of those characters that got players excited. One of the strongest, if not the strongest entity in the universe of League of Legends, the creature has proven to be somewhat useless on Summoner's Rift, however.
In the face of this, the developers have announced a Comprehensive Gameplay Update, or CGU for short. In the future, other characters will also undergo such a makeover, and Aurelion Sol will pave the way.
While already on the topic of other CGU candidates, they fall into two categories:
"The goal of a CGU is to update gameplay for two types of champions: Those that have high quality art and narrative, but whose gameplay just doesn’t quite deliver on their fantasies, or champions with more complicated gameplay issues that can’t be solved by changing one or two abilities (like the small adjustments to Tahm Kench were able to accomplish). We then rebuild the champion’s kit from scratch with the same model, theme, and narrative."
Aurelion Sol's transformation is already underway, and the effects of the creators' work, i.e. new skills and appearance (while maintaining the original lore), are to be seen at the end of this year. This means fans of the star dragon have a lot of time to enjoy the current version of the character.
Udyr and Skarner on the horizon
Progress on Udyr
We have known for a long time that Udyr will receive a VGU, or graphical upgrade, whose base is already ready. However, the creators point to the biggest challenge that awaits them while working on the character - the Spirit Guard skin:
"We really want to pour a lot of love and attention into that skin, with it being an Ultimate and all.
One of the goals for Spirit Guard is to keep some of the essence of old Udyr, so to do that it will represent the time he spent training in Ionia, and will also use the same animals as pre-VGU Udyr (Tiger, Bear, Turtle, and Phoenix)."
The concept art and 3D model of the champion has also been released. We must admit that it looks impressive.
Skarner does not lag behind
While work on the Forgotten Heroes VGU has not officially begun, one of the graphic designers at Riot Games decided to create very early concept graphic of Skarner.
Source: League of Legends
There are several proposals here, each of which looks better than the current in-game model. The first two rows represent Skarner's slightly more fantastical vision, while still preserving the idea of the scorpion.
The third row, on the other hand, is the hero's canonical look, which references his race, the Brackerns. Skarner's final version is a, one might say, test build. As we read, it represents a vision of the hero based on a possible continuation of his current story.
Nonetheless, these are still early concepts, and not even the designers at Riot Games know how Skarner will ultimately look.
New characters
Although the announcement about Aurelion Solu seems to be the most important thing in the whole roadmap, we can not forget about the new champions, which were also announced by the developers.
- The first of these is Empress, a new character from the Void who will serve as a jungler on Summoner's Rift. Could it be that Riot Games is preparing competition for Rek'sai?
- The second character is more mysterious, and all we know about her is that she is extremely colorful, cheerful and eliminates enemies in the mist. This character's destiny is supposed to be the bottom lane.
- The list is completed by a character called The Pride of Nazumah, about which we are to learn more in the next roadmap.
We have to admit that the creators threw a lot of information at the players, and the champion announcements will definitely serve as a basis for speculation about their identity. There is nothing left but to wait for the new roadmap, which we will see in a few months.
