The League of Legends community has been complaining about Riot and its lack of creativity in recent years.
There are currently over 150 heroes in LoL, and the developers are trying to make each of them unique in their own way. Of course, it is not possible to create such a huge pool of characters without some repetitions or associations with what was a few years ago. Trends and the market the game is targeting are also changing.
Over the years, we could have seen Riot shifting from creepy characters and monsters to champions who were human and would sell well in the Asian market. Several years have passed since the release of a typical monster, players complain that the creators have started to release characters that have faces like Disney princesses more and more often.
Yesterday, the appearance of the newest heroine – Zeri – was revealed. Opinions on her are strongly divided.
Riot’s creativity and new heroines
On January 4, 2022, LoL players could get to know the appearance of the latest character, the ADC – Zeri, who has been announced months ago. It was long said that the mysterious champion of Zaun would be from Arcane, and it was even believed that she was the leader of the Fireflies (it later turned out to be impossible since Ekko was).
What can be said about Zeri? She is a very young girl who will have skills related to electricity. She has a cute face and colorful hair. And this is where the problem comes in.
The players very quickly began to list the problems related to the new character. One of them noticed a few facial elements which, in his opinion, make the protagonist look as if she was pulled out of a Disney/Pixar animation:
Zeri’s splash art is borderline uncanny valley, her eyes are like, twice the size of what we can see of her nose, she has a super wide mouth and a Pixar kind of face shape, and oddly small hands, plus an almost non-existent forehead
I get that some features are exaggerated to appeal to the player base, but it looks almost creepy now, if we’re not going to have monster Champs (which doesn’t make me mad btw, pretty b****** rule), it’d be nice if the human Champs we have could look human or just slightly exaggerated humans
These kinds of features worked on Gwen because she’s literally a doll, Zeri is a whole human person looking like she has a birth defect.
Another player thought that Zeri’s face reminds him of the Frozen heroines or other princesses known from animations for children. It was also joked that due to electric skills and anime styling, LoL’s new character is “human Pikachu”.
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I like the anime style, but there is just too much of it. When was the last time we got an ugly hero and not a character that looks perfect? When was it an old man or some monster?
Just look at the list of characters from recent years:
- cute anime girl: Zoe, Neeko, Lillia, Seraphine, Gwen and now Zeri,
- sexy young woman: Kai’Sa, Senna, Samira,
- T-shirtless anime boy: Kayn, Sylas, Sett, Yone, Viego, Akshan.
Ho*y sh*t, the last male character to wear normal clothes was 2019’s Aphelios, and he looks like an anime boy too!
Another player said it is really sad to see Riot curtailing creativity for money as these kinds of champions sell better.
The Riot art team is incredibly talented and we can all clearly see that, but their creativity seems to be hindered by whoever drops the hammer during the final stages of production, it’s quite obvious just by looking at all the concept arts released for the most recent champions.
Most if not all final decisions on the designs are always the least interesting of the proposed ones, I just can’t wait to see the new champion Zeri’s concept arts so we can yet again, have the least interesting design being picked. It’s incredibly frustrating to see all this creative potential wasted due to the gigantic bias towards sale statistics Riot has, not every single decision should be made with the thought of absolute maximum profit.
Some fans started arguing that Riot was making the game’s regions too nice and cute. It is true that most commentators are aware that it is about the emphasis on earning and selling in the Asian market, but it is still interesting to compare, for example, current characters from Zaun with those with whom Zaun was associated.
Many players miss heroes like Singed, Warwick, or Twitch and call Riot’s new “creations” e-girls. Of course, it is about characters such as Seraphine or Zeri.
One of the players created a mock bingo related to the newest LoL champion. It is true that the graphics are related to the heroine’s skills, which at the moment have not been revealed, but in the middle, you can see a field with the inscription “e-girl”.
Of course, one cannot ignore the fact that many people really like the new character and like new graphic trends. After all, the heroines in the style of Seraphine, Neeko and Gwen have many fans also in Europe, and they are good material for various skins.