League of Legends’ new champion is bonkers. Aphelios, who arrived on the game’s testing servers this week, wields five different weapons, provided to him by his sister, a moon priestess, from her remote location in some sort of moon temple. His kit is so complex that Riot recently put out a 900-word primer to teach players about him before his official debut. According to a former QA tester, however, if Aphelios’ designer had got his way, the Weapon of the Faithful would have been even more unpredictable.
Former Riot QA tester Nabi Tem tweeted a series of insights into the new character’s development process earlier this week. Aphelios was brought to life by long-time champion designer Bradford ‘CertainlyT’ Wenban, the person responsible for some of League of Legends’ most complicated (and edgiest) characters. According to Tem, during the champion’s development, his designer said that “he wanted Aphelios’ power level to change based on the phase of the moon IRL.”
Fun fact. While Aphelios was in development, CertainlyT mentioned to the Playtest Team that he wanted Aphelios’ power level to change based on the phase of the moon IRL.
— nabi tem (@JustNovalas) November 25, 2019
Tem goes on to paraphrase Wenban, suggesting that he wanted “players to go outside, see that it’s a full moon, and run home to play League,” the suggestion being that Aphelios – part of the game’s moon-worshipping Lunari faction – would be at his most powerful during a Full Moon, but far weaker during a New Moon. There’s probably no way that would have actually worked, but it seems more likely than one of the wilder suggestions – that Wenban reckoned Riot should “copyright the moon.”
Paraphrasing what he said:
“I want players to go outside, see that it’s a full moon, and run home to play League.”
My response was: “But what if it’s cloudy or smoggy…”
— nabi tem (@JustNovalas) November 25, 2019
This is obviously more designers joking around with each other than anything Riot ever had the intention of pursuing seriously, and it should be taken in that spirit. Still, you’ve got to admire the brass to even float the idea, and what a thought: gazing up at the night sky, eyes drawn towards a familiar pale disc, except it’s now emblazoned with LOL.
This post originally appeared on Kotaku UK, bringing you original reporting, game culture and humour from the British isles.
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