Are you afraid?
One of the Rift’s oldest veterans is finally getting his rework. Fiddlesticks, the Harbinger of Doom, has a visual update heading down the pipelines of the League of Legends champion roster.
To celebrate the swiftly-approaching update, Riot released a new short cinematic to tease the fanbase. It’s only a bit more than a minute, and Fiddlesticks himself is barely visible the whole video, but it fits his vibe perfectly.
Viewers watch two Demacian soldiers camping out in what seem to be the ruins of some sort of structure deep in the woods. The camera is set to be at the point-of-view of one of them as the two idly banter about mages before being distracted by a bump in the night, crows squawking away in the distance.
As one of them is seemingly dragged away, a forest path opens with a lamp at the end. The victim begs for help as our point of view slowly climbs through the path, listening to the dark ambience as the lantern waves back and forth.
Upon reaching the corpse of the soldier, it begins to fragment and fall away as another cry for help sounds out, forcing the camera to whirl around once again. We watch a scarecrow a short distance away as he fittingly T-poses on us for dominance before his red eyes open, sending him crawling after us. As the screen fades away, all you hear is the gargled, distorted moaning of the name Fiddlesticks.
So, yeah, pretty spooky. You can watch the whole trailer right there above if you’d like to, but consider this your obligatory spook warning.
All in all, it’s a wonderful visual update of a character that has desperately needed one. Coming into 2020, a fan poll of the fanbase came out to show that the two champions who were most requested for a visual update were Fiddlesticks and Volibear – and Riot listened. Volibear’s rework is headed down the pipe as well, with Fiddlestick’s rework completing the first half of the project.
It’s also a faithfully done update that doesn’t seem like it should upset many fans of the character, though some people will inevitably be annoyed with change. The trailer still presents the haunting paranoia-fueled terror that Fiddlesticks is meant to convey lore-wise, helping to keep loyal to the character while also refreshingly shaking up the look.
We’ll be seeing Volibear’s update soon enough, but until then, don’t go into the woods.
