Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. News

Riot Games may have to push back release of new League of Legends champions

Aaron Mamiit
By

Riot Games’ developers are still working on new champions for League of Legends, though the release date of these characters may be delayed.

League of Legends executive producer Jessica “Safelocked” Nam discussed Riot Games’ plans for the rest of the year, including the state of the game, upcoming events, and new champions.

The Latest on League’s 2020 Plans | Riot Pls - League of Legends

Nam revealed that the promised rework for Volibear will launch next week. The rework follows that for Fiddlesticks, as these two champions were voted by players to receive a visual and gameplay update about a year ago.

Recommended Videos

After the release of the new Volibear, Nam said that Riot Games will focus on the development of new champions for the remainder of the year, which include the “whimsical new jungler” and a “masked melee carry who refuses to die” that were teased in January. The dates of their arrival to League of Legends, however, are still undetermined.

Related

“Avoiding health risks is a top priority, and we don’t want to endanger the safety of folks like VO actors and external QA partners across the world,” Nam said, resulting in new production constraints. She raised the possibility that the releases of the new champions may be “more condensed than usual,” but Riot Games still plans to add them to the game within the year.

Not much information is known about the two upcoming champions mentioned by Nam. The last dedicated jungler added to League of Legends was Kayn in 2017, so a new champion in the role will be a welcome addition. Meanwhile, there are rumors that melee carry will be General Marcus De Couteau, the father of Katarina, according to Dot Esports.

League of Legends players give back

While Riot Games is hard at work in updates for League of Legends, its players recently raised $6 million for the developer’s Social Impact Fund through its Dawnbringer Karma fundraiser.

The money was raised by players purchasing the limited edition skin for Karma, along with other cosmetic items like chromas and emotes. For the first time, players were given the opportunity to vote on which nonprofit organizations would benefit from the amassed funds.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Aaron Mamiit
Aaron Mamiit
Contributor
Aaron received a NES and a copy of Super Mario Bros. for Christmas when he was 4 years old, and he has been fascinated with…
2023 was a renaissance for strategy games. Enjoy it while you can
The main male protagonist in Fire Emblem Engage.

The strategy game genre found itself in a renaissance this year -- and you might not have noticed.

Coming off the excellent Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope and Marvel's Midnight Suns last fall, strategy games started and ended 2023 off strong from the AAA to the indie space. Unfortunately, in such a crowded year, many of the excellent games in this niche genre flew more under the radar. If you missed out on games like Fire Emblem Engage, Pikmin 4, Wargroove 2, and Last Train Home, you're missing out on a golden age of one of gaming's best genres.
Strategic moves
Many iconic strategy game franchises came back this year, starting in January. On the Xbox front, Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition finally came to Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S, bringing one of the best real-time-strategy titles to consoles for the first time. On Switch, Nintendo started the year off strong with Fire Emblem Engage. It served as a joyful celebration of the entire franchise, reflecting that in gameplay with the titular Engage system that allows player units to get more powerful and gain additional abilities by working with classic Fire Emblem characters.

Read more
Fortnite’s Rocket Racing is so fun, it could have been its own game
rocket racing hands on impressions jumping through air

Yesterday, Fortnite began its biggest expansion yet by dropping Lego Fortnite, a full survival crafting game that's playable for free within Fortnite. It was a pleasant surprise, but it isn’t the best piece of new content coming to the live-service juggernaut this week. That honor goes to Rocket Racing, an arcade racing game from the developers of Rocket League that’s available in Fortnite today.

This isn’t a simple kart racer that anyone could have put together in Fortnite’s creative mode. It’s a full-throated, free-to-play game that features 26 tracks at launch and some surprisingly deep driving systems. While Lego Fortnite may have had trouble standing on its own two feet outside of the Fortnite client, Rocket Racing could very well have launched as its own game -- and it still would be the best racing game of its type this year.

Read more
Get an exclusive new look at Song of Nunu: A League of Legends Story
Key art for Song of Nunu: A League of Legends Story.

From the moment Riot Forge’s Rowan Parker finished playing Tequila Works’ RiME, he knew he had to make a game with the studio.

“I played RiME and was like, ‘Oh my god, this game is incredible. I wonder if they would want to work with us?” Parker told Digital Trends during a recent interview over video chat. “Tequila Works is really good at telling these tight, human stories that bring you up close to all of the emotion. Working with them to tell stories with our characters is kind of a dream situation.”

Read more