Ryan ‘Reav3’ Mireles, the lead producer on the champions team at Riot Games, discussed Riot’s plans for the 2020 champion releases.
The dev video explores in depth the ideas behind the latest released champ, the current VGU’s in progress, and the future VGU’s.
Sett, the latest champion, was a success and brought a new mechanic to the Summoner’s Rift, Grit, which stores upon damage taken, and can be unleashed to deliver a significant amount of damage. His ultimate is a mix of invulnerability and AoE damage to allow him to punish enemies, beefy enemies.
For 2020, Volibear & Fiddlesticks are on the priority to be finished with their updates. They were the most highly voted champions for the VGU in 2019 and Riot has invested all their VGU resources into them to deliver.
Fiddlestick is supposed to feel scarier and his kit should be focused more on fear, both mechanically and psychologically. Volibear was updated a couple of times after player feedback and while the final direction was not the one, which the community wanted, Riot Games decided to create the demonic “lore” concept and make a skin for Volibear, to allow players to feel like the beast he is in the lore. When his VGU launches, the skin will be given to everyone who has Volibear or who will purchase him during the patch.
While the free skin giveaway is not a plan for every VGU, this was just a special gift to the community who provided so much feedback. A new vote for the 2020 VGU updates will be launched later this year, and players will be able to decide on who is going to get the next update.
After Volibear/Fiddle updates, Riot Games will focus on new champions. The idea is to try and bring champions straight from the lore and implement them into the game. A recent example is Kai’Sa, which had multiple stories in lore, but no one knew how would she be played in the game. After Kai’Sa success, Riot Games decided to bring Senna into the game. Players should expect more familiar faces from the lore hit the Rift later this year.
The latest experiment with events, when a champion was released makes players feel more evolved and this will continue going into 2020. All champions releases will have specific events, such as the latest Night & Dawn, Mecha Kingdom events. A new jungler will be coming later this year in Summer.
