Riot Games has introduced the next new champion for League of Legends (LoL). A video featured K’Sante: He’s a top lane tank expected in late 2022 when preseason for the 2023 season begins. It sounds like LoL took inspiration from Monster Hunter.
Where is the information from? On Friday, 8/12, Riot Games released a video highlighting “Champions and the 2023 Preseason.” Lounged there was Ryan “Reav3” Mireles, lead producer of gameplay for League of Legends. He had already presented the last champions, which have now all arrived in League of Legends (via youtube).
“The whole city is constantly impressed by him”
This is what LoL reveals about new champions: Mireles says:
“A new top lane tank is coming out of Shurima later this year. This champion brings with it a part of Shurima we haven’t explored yet: the city of Nazumah.
Nazumah is an oasis city-state on the southern edge of the desert. And unlike the rest of Shurima, they are not followers of Azir.
Nazumah sits on the only source of water for miles, and the people have had to fight giant monsters just to keep from dying of thirst. It was an uphill battle, but in the end they conquered the oasis and built their society around it.”
New champ has special weapons: Ntofos
“Now, 500 years later, this new champion, with the warriors of Nazumah, hunts down exactly these monsters and with the materials obtained from them they improve their infrastructure and weapons.
He’s even battled one of the world’s largest monsters, making his unique Ntofos out of his regenerating armor.
Ntofos are huge, blunt weapons that can be used defensively. But he can break them at any time, unleashing carefully crafted blades capable of tearing through any foe with lightning speed. Shortly thereafter, the material returns to its blunt form so that he can pummel you well into the hospital. It’s quite a spectacle, to be honest.
But you don’t have to believe me alone. In fact, the whole city-state is permanently impressed by him. He is K’Sante, the pride of Nazumah, after all. You have to earn the title first.”
Here’s how LoL introduced the hero Bel’Veth:
LoL: Trailer Shows Off New Jungle Champion Bel’Veth In Gameplay – Mobile And Murderous
How do you discuss the hero? The new hero, K’Sante, is hardly discussed in the League of Legends community: Other revelations from the video were found more exciting, most notably the changes to the jungle.
One of the few discussions is about the name of the hero: K’Sante: Up until now, an apostrophe always stood for a void monster, but K’Sante apparently has nothing to do with the void. LoL breaks with its naming conventions (via reddit).
The tank certainly sounds like Riot Games took a lot of inspiration from the Monster Hunter series: a warrior who hunts monsters to craft new gear from their body parts to hunt even bigger monsters is accurate what defines the game series. Here in the West, the series is best known for “Monster Hunter World”.
Apparently, Riot plans to change the hero’s weapon from “blunt” to “sharp”, maybe the weapons in “normal form” increase defensive values and then increase K’Sante’s offense in “sharp form”. But we will surely learn a lot more about K’Sante after Worlds.
LoL often has a balancing problem with new heroes:
New champion eats LoL – Bel’Veth is considered “hyper-carry”, has an absurdly high ban rate