League of Legends was forced to immediately redesign its new dragon champ after fans pointed out its frightening resemblance to an actual human child.
You know how it goes: sometimes you’ll aim for a spyro and land on a boss baby. At least, that’s how I assume Riot arrived at the initial design for Smolder, League of Legends’ newest champion. Announced last week, Smolder is a “brave dragon cutie” designed purpose To evoke a kind of mascot-ish, Pixar/DreamWorks-style cuteness that fans and fan-artists can get.
Say hello to Smolder, the Fiery Fledgling 🔥 pic.twitter.com/oW6djOOhW6January 5, 2024
But it didn’t quite work. Riot announced a smolder redesign soon after the announcement as fans were turned off by the little guy’s face: less like an adorable dragon and more like someone used LA Noire face tech to apply the face of a human baby to a hairless cat. Comparisons with Sonic the Hedgehog’s original movie design and his alarming human teeth were immediate and free-flowing.
That’s why, right after the official LoL Twitter account invited us to meet Smolder, the game’s champion team lead Lexi Gao took to the platform to assure fans that Riot had “heard your feedback on Smolder’s face and made some adjustments to highlight his dragons. Features,” attaching a gif to illustrate the precious boy’s rough transition.
Hey friends! We’ve heard your feedback on Smolder’s face and are making some adjustments to highlight his dragon features. Thank you so much to Gem, @O0_Y_0O and @White_Leyth for making this happen! The Splash team is also working on some adjustments! pic.twitter.com/6CWfVYwQjYJanuary 5, 2024
I have to say, the new smolder is less likely to haunt me in my dreams, and it was to add a few dragon-ly stripes and scales to a plain, simple face. smolder”The world looks better now“And its new design”The perfect glow-up“For the little tyke.
I mean, some people would still like it to have a more defined snout, and I imagine people drawing Anxious fanart The original smolder is probably pewed, but you can’t have everything.
LoL has a form for troubling character designs that it later brings up to date. Who among us can forget Poppy, whose horrible splash art still occupies a full 10% of my brain at any given time? That change wasn’t as quick as the Smolder redesign, mind you, and if you want to see how LoL’s new champ actually handles in the field, you can find out when it arrives on February 7 as part of patch 14.3.
