A League of Legends champion has been killed off for the first time ever

By Kris Wouk Published July 30, 2015

League of Legends Gangplank character art — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Strategies change frequently in League of Legends, but a few things are sacred, namely the game’s roster of champions. While numerous champions have been added to the game since launch, none have been killed. Until now.

It seems that Riot Games has found a way to make sure that League of Legends players pay more attention to its carefully crafted lore. For the past few weeks, Riot has been running an event titled Bilgewater, focusing on a city of the same name and the characters that occupy it. The event’s latest development saw the champion Gangplank killed off by his rival, Miss Fortune.

Recommended Videos

Where players start to care is that as a result of this story event, Gangplank has been removed as a playable champion. Logging into League of Legends, players are greeted with a message that simply reads “Gangplank is dead and has been disabled in all queues,” according to Kotaku.

Considering that League of Legends is a free-to-play game that makes most of its money by selling players various in-game items, champions included, this has players upset. When Gangplank was for sale, he would cost players a little more than the equivalent of $5 if they didn’t buy the champion with currency earned in-game.

A Riot staffer addressed players’ requests for refunds: “Champion death is unprecedented in League of Legends, and we do not take it lightly. We encourage all Gangplank fans to remain calm for a few days until we can fully assess the situation. At this time, we are not addressing refund requests for him or his skins but please know that over the next several days we’ll do our best to make things right for everyone.”

It could be that Riot is taking time to figure out how to reimburse players, but there’s another, more likely option: Gangplank isn’t really being removed from the game. Nowhere is it said that the champion won’t return, simply that he won’t be available for a while. The Riot staffer’s mention of waiting for “the next several days” seems to hint at this.

Riot recently gave Gangplank a complete overhaul, and it seems unlikely that the company would want to throw that hard work away so soon. For now all players can do is wait and see.

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Kris Wouk is a tech writer, gadget reviewer, blogger, and whatever it's called when someone makes videos for the web. In his…

Gaming

Bandle Tale: A League of Legends Story is a bittersweet eulogy for Riot Forge

A variant key art for Bandle Tale: A League of Legends Story.

Bandle Tale: A League of Legends Story is a new game about getting out of your comfort zone and connecting with others. In many ways, that's also the story of Riot Forge. The publishing label pushed its corporate parent Riot Games out of its AAA design instincts to expand the world of Runterra. There's only so much narrative you can weave into something like League of Legends, and all of Riot Forge’s games offered unique perspectives that enriched this world. I found fulfillment in that strategy too, as someone who enjoys the world of Runeterra, but didn't want to play League of Legends itself. It’s a treatment that few well-known franchises get outside comic book universes, Warhammer, and Star Wars.

Unfortunately, Bandle Tale is the last of its kind for now as Riot Forge has been shuttered as part of recent Riot Games layoffs. That’s a shame, not just for League of Legends, but the video game industry at large. If nothing else, Bandle Tale is worth checking out as a bold move from a major studio, which is something that's becoming increasingly rare.
A solid sendoff
Developer Lazy Bear Games’ Bandle Tale takes place in Bandle City, home to many of the cute, furry Yordle creatures that League of Legends players are likely familiar with. This gives us our first look into their society, which is fractured when a portal network is destroyed during a party toward the start of the game. After that, it’s up to the player, who had isolated themselves for over 100 years, to reunite the portal network and find their lost friends. Like most Riot Forge titles, Bandle Tale is narrative-focused and has more of a humorous edge than the label’s other games.

Gaming

I reviewed Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. Here’s why I think it can still be saved

Joker in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.

Is Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League a salvageable live-service game? That question was top of mind as I reviewed the latest DC Arkhamverse game from Rocksteady Studios.

The antihero game is a co-op multiplayer shooter, and Rocksteady and WB have already committed to seasons of post-launch content. It's set to follow a live service approach with its endgame and in-game store. Historically, games like this have gone both ways after a rocky launch. Titles like Anthem and Marvel’s Avengers stand out as notable failures. They both seemed initially promising, launched in a rocky state, failed to garner the needed support through post-launch updates, and eventually shuttered.

Gaming

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League’s biggest villain is its own legacy

Harley Quinn lays down while speaking to Amanda Waller in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League's reveal trailer

Frank Miller set the standards for most modern Batman stories with The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One in the 1980s. That same legendary creator thoroughly disappointed with All-Star Batman & Robin in the 2000s due to subpar writing and odd character moments. The latter might have been less infamous if the Batman stories that came before from Miller weren't so influential, but that's not the universe we're living in. Modern comic book universes like DC and Marvel have a problem dealing with their own legacy. With so many decades of iconic characters and stories, it can be tough not to introduce new people to the universe but to live up to the high mark of older books. That makes it harder for great new stories to stand out and exacerbates criticism of newer works.

With Rocksteady Studios' Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, that problem has finally hit comic book video games. I've spent over eight hours with Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League so far in both single-player and multiplayer after receiving code the day after its early access launch. My time with the game has yielded mixed results. It's not an absolute disaster like Redfall of The Day Before, but it's disappointing in the context of Rocksteady's legacy.