League of Legends was able to have success all over the world and for a very long time. This particular success has very positive side effects. Among them, a very important one stands out. Most of the developers who come to Riot Games do so with an excessive vocation and are already very fond of the video game to which they are going to devote themselves and its different elements. Working on creating video games is the result of their vocation, but doing it on their favorite title increases the level of engagement exponentially and the most interesting stories emerge.
We’ve already seen fans start working after creating their own champions while they were still community artists and something similar happened in the case of the upcoming Aurelion Sol revamp. Robert Rosa , currently better known as Riot KingKobra, will be the main person in charge of a project that he has been dreaming about for years and that he started as if he were just one employee among others. He was already working in the company when he was designing his own champion model, but he had to climb countless stairs before he could officially get to work.
The Riot Games award for the diligence of one of its workers
Robert has worked at Riot Games for five years as a developer engineer within the quality department. This gave him a privileged position to transmit his ideas or initiate projects related to video games. However, he was not very good at programming. After all, and although he had an exceptional academic background, his training had been in the field of civil engineering and not computer science. A situation that forces him to challenge in order to improve and play a bigger role in the developer’s projects.
In this spirit, Riot KingKobra began developing a redesign of Aurelion Sol over three years ago for which he had no expectations. Confidence that the project would achieve anything was so low that it even shared with the community of fans of this champion . Not because he was an employee of Riot Games, since he warned that he was not a design champion and that it was not something that would happen to the game at any time. He just wanted to share with the community his take on some fun things the character could do.
Fortunately, the subject is still relevant on the internet and we were even able to collect the skills that Robert had imagined for the rework of Aurelion Sol which he now leads.
- Passive : This would be a mobility skill which, in a way, would increase his movement speed considerably after a certain time of walking in a straight line. It looks like his current E but with more freedom.
- HAS : Aurelion Sol stands still and breathes fire. The flames follow the direction of the cursor and the character consumes mana for every second the ability is used. Additionally, affected terrain is kept at a high temperature, which affects characters in one way or another. This ability can affect towers.
- Z : A spell similar to his R, but rebalanced to become a basic ability. This would have an effect similar to Syndra’s E (Scatter the Weak).
- E : Creates a star in the target direction that fades after a few seconds. The star can be destroyed with the A or Z causing an explosion that stuns enemies hit.
- R : Creates a black hole at the target location that grows larger over time. It works similarly to Nunu’s R (Absolute Zero) which is cast from a target location and not from the champion’s body. The ability’s explosion causes enemies to pull towards the center.
At this point, we don’t know exactly how many of these abilities he managed to squeeze into the final champion revamp. However, the insistence and hard work of Robert Rosa opened a new door for the developer. What started as a personal project to one day play a bigger role in design turned into one of the most ambitious experiences in League of Legends history . Riot Games didn’t just open the doors for him to work on his favorite champion. From the developer, they also believe that, if it goes well, many former champions will be able to benefit from similar work in the future.
Aurelion Sol players are in the best hands they could have been. A fan of the champion who works in another department of Riot Games and dreamed of exercising this profession was able to achieve his great professional ambition and has a project whose first details have already been revealed. Maybe back then, as he insisted, he wasn’t a developer. Yet he now has everything he needs to give a second life to a character who, despite everything, remains one of the favorites of the League of Legends community.
Former League of Legends champions are getting more changes than ever and Riot Games has decided to explain all the details about the “average gameplay updates”. Their criteria for choosing characters, goals, or boundaries they don’t want to cross are discussed.