With the Arcane season 2 finale in the rearview mirror, Riot is taking influence from the show back to its source material with a fresh revamp for Viktor in League of Legends.
“Following the release of the second season of Arcane, a Visual and Gameplay Update (VGU) will be released for Viktor, which will arrive on PBE tomorrow,” Riot explains in a press release. “The update will feature new art and an updated backstory for Viktor, better aligning him to the Viktor fans were shown in Arcane, but largely retain his core gameplay apart from a slight functional and thematic change to his ultimate, which will now get larger with every kill until the end of the ability’s duration.”
The devs go into a bit more detail on what to expect in the video below – but those details, I should warn, come with a spoiler warning for the Arcane season 2 finale. Skip the video and stop reading now if you want to heed that warning.
“We’re not pulling a Gangplank and disabling him because he’s dead,” League studio head Andrei ‘Meddler’ van Roon jokes. “Well hold on,” executive producer Paul ‘Pabro’ Bellezza teases. “I think you’re on to something with killing Gangplank and other characters.” But it seems that’s all just a joke. (For now, at least.)
The exact nature of the art and backstory changes remain to be seen, but Viktor has historically sported a very different look between show and game. You can see Riot’s teaser for at least one of the new skins below.
Arcane hasn’t gotten any League of Legends characters killed in-game, Gangplank-style, but this is the second character to get an Arcane-inspired revamp. Around the release of Arcane season 1 back in 2021, Caitlyn got an Art & Sustainability Update (ASU) that brought the in-game character much closer to her appearance in the show.
Arcane may be over, but a new League of Legends show is already a year into development.