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Trivia / League of Legends

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  • Acting for Two: League of Legends has reused voice actors doing multiple roles, mostly from their earlier days:
    • Micha Berman voices old Fiddlesticks and classic Master Yi.
    • Erik Braa voices Jax (both before and after his ASU), Draven, and Vel'Koz.
    • Emily O'Brien voices Camille and Samira.
    • Erin Fitzgerald voices both Sona and Janna. She also provided her voice for DJ Sona, Sona's updated voice, and PsyOps Sona, but not Forecast Janna (whose actual voice actress is withheld).
    • Zehra Fazal voices Kayle and Taliyah (Legends of Runeterra onward)
    • J.S. Gilbert voices old Dr. Mundo, Gragas, old Udyr (both classic and Spirit Guard Udyr), pre-VGU Sion, and Battlecast Cho'Gath.
    • Gavin Hammon voices Varus, Blood Lord Vladimir (replacing Kevin M. Connolly, the regular voiceover of Vladimir), and old Pantheon.
    • Adam Harrington voices Kassadin, Shaco, and the old versions of Karthus, Mordekaiser, and Ryze.
    • Kyle Hebert voices Jarvan IV and was the original voice for both Ezreal and Graves (even though he was replaced for Ezreal and Graves, he still voices Jarvan in Legends of Runeterra).
    • Melissa Hutchison voices Ashe and Teemo (Legends of Runeterra onward).
    • Dennis Collins Johnson voices the current Heimerdinger, Corki, and the pre-VGU Gangplank and pre-VGU Taric.
    • Carrie Keranen voices Lux and LeBlanc.
    • Alexa Kahn voices Sivir and, starting with the PROJECT legendary skin, Vayne.
    • Erica Lindbeck voices Taliyah (before being Darrin'd), Zoe, and the current version of Morgana.
    • Lisa Lindsley voices Soraka and the original Kayle (both classic and Aether Wing Kayle).
    • David Lodge voiced the original Galio (now currently voiced by Josh Petersdorf) and Skarner, and now voices Ivern.
    • Scott McNeil voices Hecarim, Sion, Veigar, and the original Maokai.
    • Matthew Mercer voices the current Gangplank, as well as the Wolf half of Kindred.
    • Cristina Milizia voices Amumu, Annie, and the original Nunu.
    • Vic Mignogna voiced the first voiceover for Lee Sin and Malzahar.
    • The late Philece Sampler voiced both Fizz and Kennen.
    • Rebecca Schweitzer voiced the original Morgana and Sivir.
    • Patrick Seitz voices Renekton, Kog'Maw, and the original Lucian.
    • Brian Sommer voices Tryndamere, and the original Willump and Warwick.
    • Spike Spencer voices Wukong and Kled.
    • Karen Strassman has quite a few credits: Cassiopeia, Fiora, Shyvana, and Zyra.
    • Fred Tatasciore voices Graves and Mordekaiser.
    • Owen Thomas voices Twisted Fate (now voiced by Ray Chase) and Viktor.
    • Joshua Tomar voices Trundle as well as Greyor (the southern shopkeeper of the Howling Abyss).
    • Duncan Watt voices both Blitzcrank and Rammus.
    • Cassandra Lee Morris voices both Nami and Yuumi.
    • Travis Willingham voices both Azir (now voiced by Ike Amadi) and Talon.
    • Joe Zieja voices EXO (the talkative AI accompanying Gun Goddess Miss Fortune) and Space Groove Blitzcrank (both Blitz and Crank).
    • Martial Le Minoux has voiced more characters than anyone else in the French dub, including Corki, Galio (first voice), Kindred (Wolf), Malzahar, Maokai, Olaf, Ryze, Twitch and Udyr.
  • Actor-Inspired Element:
  • All-Star Cast:
    • The Japanese version of the game features some of the top voice actors from anime such as Sumire Uesaka, Rie Kugimiya, Keiji Fujiwara, Tomokazu Sugita, Ikue Otani, Takehito Koyasu, Aoi Yūki, Natsuki Hanae, and many more in the list.
    • The Mexican Spanish dub is not a slouch in this department either, since it features many younger and veteran voice actors as well.
    • The Spaniard dub features a great number of Madrid based actors, both veterans, newcomers and newcomers that had become veterans; that continues to grow with each champion update and release. Alfonso Vallés is the only actor from Barcelona in the game (he voiced Gangplank's second visual update) which makes the game's VA cast even more all star.
    • The Brazilian Portuguese cast uses most of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro's top voice actors, as well as a few rising stars.
  • Ascended Fanon: For years fans made out Teemo to be a Memetic Psychopath and Satanic Archetype due to his in-game kit being extremely annoying and players using his laugh track to bait their opponents into less than ideal situations. Riot has addressed this by making him two different skins; Little Devil Teemo, which depicts Teemo as Satan himself, and Omega Squad Teemo, which depicts Teemo as an Ax-Crazy Shell-Shocked Veteran trying to murder everyone else on the Rift.
  • Ascended House Rules: "All Random All Mid" was a very popular unofficial game mode going all the way back to League's spiritual predecessor, Defense of the Ancients. In June 2012, Riot enabled the Proving Grounds (originally a single-lane map used for the game's tutorial mode) for use in custom games, indirectly to allow for more well-maintained ARAM games, and the mode proved so popular that ARAM was officially made a permanent game mode in patch 3.6, with Riot designing the all-new Howling Abyss to serve as its map.
  • Author Phobia: Several members of the team that created Elise happened to be arachnophobic — VFX artist Christina "RIOTSTEEN" Wun would often avoid transforming into Elise's spider form as often as possible, and when Elise was waiting approval to be shipped out, animation director "RiotBamDragon" consciously skimmed over the spider form's animations and pushed that they were probably good to ship.
  • Author's Saving Throw:
  • Bad Export for You: Between 2010-2022, the game's release and ongoing publishing in Southeast Asia was handled not by Riot themselves, but outsourced to Singaporean company Garena, who ran the game off their own servers and launcher client. Garena servers have been notoriously fraught with problems when compared to official Riot releases, including having delayed patch releases compared to the rest of the world, arbitrarily-raised prices for cosmetics, introducing several gambling-based mechanics (including their own "Lucky Crates" loot), and even being used as an unauthorized front for cryptomining. Riot terminated their partnership with Garena in 2022, migrating existing player accounts being to their own official servers for the SEA region. During the process, Riot attached a "server-warming" event for SEA players, giving them all preexisting champions for free alongside other goodies, with many assuming it was at least in part an apology for SEA players dealing with Garena's shenanigans.
  • Banned in China: Similar to the issue with the Forsaken in World of Warcraft, Karthus was redesigned from a skull-faced lich to a withered, shadow-wrapped figure for the Chinese art, due to taboos about representations of skeletons in media. The only skins that keep their skull-faced appearances are his Grim Reaper skin (likely because it represents the more abstract personification of death) and his Pentakill skin (for reasons unknown).
  • Beam Me Up, Scotty!: Contrary to Memetic Mutation, Garen doesn't shout "DEMACIA!" when using Judgement (his signature Spin Attack). That's a separate skill, Courage, but because Courage is usually used in combo with Judgement, it comes across as the most widely known case.
  • Celebrity Voice Actor: Nigerian-American rapper Umar Ibrahim, better known as Thutmose, serves not only as a musical collaborator representing Ekko as part of True Damage, he also provides the skin's in-game voiceover.
  • Children Voicing Children: When Nunu received his VGU in 2018, rather than cross-casting him like before, they instead casted the role to Lucas Jaye, who was 11 at the time of recording.
  • Content Leak:
    • Much of the content for the 2020 Spirit Blossom event was leaked at least a month before official release, with screenshots and documents confirming skins for Ahri, Cassiopeia, Kindred, and Riven, as well as prematurely announcing Yone as the next new champion (who was additionally verified thanks to datamining Spirit Blossom Thresh's voice lines). While Riot's plan was to release the content on the set schedule shown in the game's client, they did quietly add some cosmetic assets (icons and emotes) onto the PBE based on several of these leaks, further confirming them.
    • After Seraphine's K/DA Character Blog began but before she was officially announced as a champion, her kit was prematurely discovered through datamining in Wild Rift during its closed beta, the first concrete connection between her and League of Legends.
    • Bel'Veth's in-game appearance and kit was leaked in early May 2022, weeks before the character herself was properly announced by Riot.
    • Briar's splash art and a clip of her gameplay testing leaked a full week ahead of her official reveal.
  • Creator Backlash:
    • It's pretty much a given that if Riot reworks a champion and their lore to an especially drastic degree (among the biggest examples being Sion, Poppy, and Urgot), they probably regret their prior incarnation by quite a bit. When asked about old Mordekaiser's lore in light of his upcoming 2019 relaunch:
      Riot Xenogenic: Imagine a movie where people find a lost tomb, and that tomb is cursed, and everyone who comes out of it and talks about it dies. Let's just say: it's better if we don't talk about Morde's old scripts.
    • A mild example regarding Aatrox's 2018 VGU. While Rioters consider the reworked design and gameplay to be a success in terms of a standalone perspective, they are aware of the significant fan backlash of it being too different from the original Aatrox and regret having strayed too far from his initial identity.
    • Sewn Chaos Amumu and Blitzcrank made it onto the PBE and were almost ready to go, but after negative fan feedback that Riot agreed with, the skins were cancelled before they could be properly sold live. Riot seems to view them as this, as their Dummied Out skin description reads "Due to their low quality and uglyness, these toys are destined to remain in the toy trash bin of unwantedness."
    • Dynamic Queue was rolled out during Season 6 as a replacement to the Solo/Duo Queue, with the intent that players could team up and would be matched against pre-made groups for games, including ranked games. However, this turned out to bea colossal change for the worse due to it greatly breaking the balance and quality of matchmaking, with Riot completely undoing it by the following year. In Riot's 10-year anniversary video, during a section containing the game's historical low points, Dynamic Queue was put among their greatest mistakes.
    • Before the end of 2021, the year of the Ruined King Saga, Riot admitted in an event retrospective that for their first major forward-pushing Story Arc, they missed the mark in a lot of ways. While they were still happy with some elements, they admitted that the in-client Visual Novel was in retrospect the wrong move for a plot as big and sprawling as the Ruination, that the lore was too canonically, tonally, and characteristically inconsistent, and that overall, they overpromised and undelivered, promising to learn from their mistakes for future lore events.
    • Champion designer Riot August confessed in a personal stream that he regrets how two of the champions he was lead designer on — Zeri and Gnar — turned out the way they did, lamenting how they took a risk with their designs, only for them to become highly toxic as staples in pro play, with it being near-impossible to properly balance them either which way.
  • Defictionalization: Ever want to hear Pentakill's music? Now you can with their new album, Smite and Ignite, released on June 3rd, 2014.
    • The other in-universe musical groups, K/DA and True Damage, similarly have professionally recorded music.
  • Development Hell:
    • Lee Sin was a very early champion concept (you can see him in early trailers for the game), but the character was canceled due to his design not being seen fantastic enough. There were rumors of him being put back into development floating around for a good long while, especially after champion designs became less fantastic, until late March 2011 where he was announced once more, with a new model, skillset, and name.
    • Ao Shin was first announced back in 2013 and slated to be released before Lucian and Jinx. Then the design team had quite a hard time animating a serpentine figure, and he was delayed. Then the gameplay mechanics team started bashing their heads over and over again trying to design his ability kit, going as far as drafting and scrapping multiple different kits altogether. By 2015, Ao Shin had already acquired the status of the champion that will never, ever be released. The design team eventually gave up, changed his entire theme and ability kit completely, and was finally released in 2016 as Aurelion Sol. In 2020, Ao Shin himself was sort-of added to the game as a skin for Aurelion Sol and as a Little Legend for use in Teamfight Tactics.
    • Dragon Master Swain was based on a skin concept originally pitched by a fan on the forums in 2011. Despite immediate positive reception, including from several Rioters who claimed it was being worked on, it quietly experienced a Troubled Production cycle, having been canceled twice by 2017. It wasn't until Swain had his full visual/gameplay update in early 2018 where the skin finally saw fruition.
    • Pizza Delivery Sivir began as an incredibly popular fan concept going all the way back from 2010, and it was officially teased in concept art in a 2013 PAX Prime panel. It's unknown what happened in the following 5-year interim where it simply vanished, but it finally came to be in 2018.
    • Ruined King was teased in 2019 and eventually set to have a release date in some time during 2020. However, the COVID-19 pandemic caused developmental issues that forced it to be delayed to "early 2021", originally with the intent to precede or coincide with the upcoming Rise of the Sentinels event in the summer and the Ruined King saga at large. Unfortunately, the game missed that release date as well and was since scheduled to a general "2021" date, with both Riot and Airship Syndicate going noticeably quiet on the matter since. They did eventually speak up in November 2021, but just a day before the full game was suddenly released.
  • Diagnosis of God: Following a fan query, then-senior narrative writer Odin "WAAARGHbobo" Shafer confirmed that Rakan has a form of ADHD. WAAARGHbobo claims to not have intentionally written Rakan as such, but given he took inspiration from people he knew with ADD and manic-depressive behaviors to craft Rakan's scatterbrained identity, Rakan also having the same issues wasn't a stretch.
  • Distanced from Current Events: In patch 11.21, an undocumented update saw Vi's abilities renamed to their current titles "Relentless Force" and "Cease and Desist" from the original "Excessive Force" and "Assault and Battery". There was no official reason why, but it's widely accepted it was done to distance Vi (a Cowboy Cop character) from the increasingly controversial profile of Police Brutality in The New '20s, especially since it was during the highly-publicized release of Arcane, where Vi is a protagonist.
  • Dueling Games: With others in the MOBA genre: Demigod, Heroes of Newerth, and, of course, Defense of the Ancients. Heroes of Newerth at one point was by far the biggest rival; Dota 2 has since become the main competitor with League of Legends, as their rivalry has gone quite long compounded with some starkly differing approach in MOBA as well as the antics of a certain Pendragon that inadvertently fanned a harsh rivalry between the two fandoms. They also have their own cast of mostly original characters when Smite and HOTS used existing materials (Mythology and Blizzard Entertainment games).
    • It is worth noting that the lead developers of both Dota 2 and League of Legends were the lead developers of Defense of the Ancients. Guinsoo, the first lead developer, was hired by Riot Games; IceFrog, a later developer who took the game after Guinsoo resigned, was hired by Valve.
    • A few days before Wukong's first preview blurb, competing game Heroes of Newerth announced its new champion: the Monkey King. Technically HoN created concept art first, but didn't do anything with it until rumours about a Monkey King in LoL surfaced. Needless to say, accusations of copying were flung from both ends despite the character clearly being a reference to Sun Wukong from Journey to the West.
  • Executive Meddling:
  • Flip-Flop of God:
  • Follow the Leader: The widespread success of the game has provoked plenty of competition from countless studios getting a slice of the MOBA pie, but there have been a few especially noteworthy cases of copying League of Legends in particular, and coincidentally sparked the idea of a 'Mobile MOBA with analog control' subgenre which are mostly from China (the genre is after all highly popular there):
    • Honor of Kings — and later its international adaptation, Arena of Valor — was Tencent's stab at replicating the League of Legends formula, but for mobile platforms. Honor of Kings was developed and released shortly after Tencent had acquired Riot Games, the story being that they wanted Riot to make a mobile version of League, and when Riot declined (at the time believing that MOBAs were too sophisticated to be played on smartphones), they produced their own. Honor of Kings' massive success in their native China is what inspired Riot to eventually produce Wild Rift, and aside from a brief legal scuffle surrounding the title (the game was renamed from League of Kings, as Riot called them out as "blatantly ripping off their intellectual property"), the two have since coexisted more or less peacefully, with Tencent even delaying their western advertising push of Arena of Valor to allow Wild Rift to get its initial announcements out.
    • Moonton's Mobile Legends: Bang Bang is another mobile-based League clone, one that perhaps more infamously wears much more of its influences on its sleeve, sporting not just similar MOBA gameplay, art style, and character designs, but even derivative projects, from its asset-recycling autochess game mode, esports scene, and even Fake Bands of its heroes releasing their own music. Both Riot and their parent company, Tencent, have sued Moonton for copyright infringement, and while the first few suits ended in quiet settlementsnote , another ongoing lawsuit was filed in 2022 to restrain Moonton's western business operationsnote . Despite Mobile Legends' controversial image in the west, it's achieved legitimate success, especially in Southeast Asia where it even surpasses Wild Rift as a steady competitor (being several years early to the market certainly helps).
  • In Memoriam: The "Total Biscuit of Rejuvenation" item was introduced in 2012 as a result of and named after John "TotalBiscuit" Bain. After Bain's passing from a several year-long battle with cancer in 2018, the item has since been renamed the "Total Biscuit of Everlasting Will".
  • Make-A-Wish Contribution:
    • In 2012, a young fan named Joe visited Riot Games through Make-A-Wish Foundation, with a brief spotlight being put on Jax's "Jaximus" skin — Joe's favorite skin — which was briefly sold with proceeds going to Make-A-Wish. When Joe passed away shortly afterwards, "Jaximus" received an additional skin-exclusive voiceline: "Here's to you, kid!"
    • Dark Star Cho'Gath was made in collaboration with a fan named Bryan, who visited Riot Games in 2017 and not only had a hand in the skin's design, but also a login theme. Riot originally wished it to be a one-of-a-kind personal memento just for Bryan, but they briefly put it for public release in 2018, with all proceeds (an estimated total $6.1 million) being donated to nonprofit charities. Following the drive, the skin was then shifted to being an uber-exclusive Gemstone skin, now currently in a rotation as a Mythic Essence skin.
  • Model Dissonance: In-game character models, especially later on, are designed to look good for the sole isometric/aerial camera angle for gameplay. As such, some can look a little weird when viewed at more "normal" angles from in-engine champion trailers and spotlights, popular examples being Irelia's enormous hips and Akali's hands.
  • Multiple Languages, Same Voice Actor: Brazilian voice actress Flora Paulita voices Neeko in English and her native Portuguese.
  • Newbie Boom: The release and smash success of Arcane in 2021 created a notable surge in outside interest for the League franchise as a whole and the MOBA in specific. Of special mention is how it affected individual champions, where many of those who were major characters in the series gained a huge spike in playrate, especially Vi, who is arguably the series protagonist. It's especially funny for her as due to her Skill Gate Character design, she was rarely as popular as the likes of Jinx, Caitlyn, Jayce, etc., but in the seasons following this newfound attention, she's remained as more of a consistently strong and relevant competitive pick.
  • The Other Darrin: Nearly every character who has gone through a full visual update with a new voiceover has had their voice actor replaced for one reason or another. Several others have also been recasted in subsequent appearances, such as Legends of Runeterra, Tales of Runeterra, and Arcane, which has then bled into League.
    • Akali was recast twice following her VGU; her first VO came from Krizia Bajos, replacing Laura Bailey from her original incarnation. Starting with Tales of Runeterra, Ashly Burch took over main duties for the character, reportedly in part due to contact and availability issues with Bajos. While recording the voiceover for Star Guardian Akali in 2022, Riot planned for Burch to redo Akali's default voice as well, with a fully-recorded replacement voiceover making it all the way onto the PBE, but due to negative fan feedback, it was scrapped.
    • Ekko went from Antony Del Rio in his first appearance to Reed Shannon in all subsequent appearances, even Arcane which largely recasted the cast of champions appearing.
    • Gangplank as of his 2015 rework is currently voiced by Matthew Mercer, replacing Dennis Collins Johnson of before, though in a bit of controversy, Johnson was apparently never contacted by Riot to potentially reprise his role.
    • Graves has gone from Kyle Hebert to Fred Tatasciore, starting with Tales of Runeterra.
    • In July 2019, Lee Sin's voiceover by Vic Mignogna was replaced with a new one by Feodor Chin. While Riot hasn't given an official statement as to why (Lee Sin received no other accompanying visual update), this was generally seen as a response to the sexual harassment allegations against Mignogna from earlier in the year.
    • Lucian went from Patrick Seitz to TJ Storm, having his League voice over completely redone with Senna's release.
    • Greg Chun, starting with PROJECT:, has replaced Micah Berman as the voice of Master Yi, voicing the champ in subsequent appearances like Wild Rift and Legends of Runeterra.
    • Miss Fortune has gone from being voiced by an uncredited actor to being played primarily by Laura Bailey, starting with Tales and Legends of Runeterra. She'd also play the character in Ruined King.
    • Omega Squad Teemo was confirmed to have a different voice actor to his normal VO (confirmed later to be Melissa Hutchinson), with the original, unidentified voice actor having since joined an actor's union. Hutchinson has since been the main voice for the champ from Legends of Runeterra onwards.
    • With the music of Pentakill, the singers behind the champions are in constant rotation: Jørn Lande provides Karthus' voice in "Lightbringer" and "Mortal Reminder", while "Deathfire Grasp" and "Last Whisper" are performed by ZP Theart, and "Infinity Edge" and "Rapidfire Cannon" are voiced by Per Johannson.
    • Similarly, K/DA's vocal cast has some variable vocal casting. While they're pretty consistent with Miyeon and Soyeon as Ahri and Akali, Evelynn has been performed by Madison Beer and Bea Miller, and Kai'Sa by Jaira Burns and Wolftyla.
    • In the Japanese dub:
  • Permanent Placeholder:
  • Playing Against Type: Considering the amount of Butt Monkeys he's voiced, the last character one might expect to hear Spike Spencer lend his vocal talents to would have to be a crazed redneck Yordle like Kled.
  • Production Nickname: Many of the champions have had these.
    • Tahm Kench was known as "Fish Tank" and "Twocoats".
    • Camille had plenty while in development, including "Lady Em," "The Left Hand of Piltover," "The Gray Lady" (which became an In-Universe Nickname for the character), and "Cyborg MI6 Mary Poppins."
    • This Ask Riot revealed several development Working Titles for several champions over the years, several of which interestingly became their official subtitles (including Elise, Vi, Thresh, Illaoi, and Taliyah).
  • Promoted Fanboy:
    • Even prior to being cast as the Japanese voices of Heimerdinger, Veigar, and Ziggs, Natsuki Hanae was a big fan of the game.
    • Imagine Dragons were big League of Legends fans prior to being approached to collaborate for the Worlds 2014 theme, "Warriors". They would eventually return to working with Riot to make "Enemy", the opening theme to Arcane.
    • Porter Robinson became hooked on League after being introduced to Arcane, where he realized he wanted to collaborate with Riot for a song. He actually reached out to them first, and the end result was "Everything Goes On", the official theme for the 2022 Star Guardian event.
  • Real-Life Relative: From the Brazilian Portuguese version of the game, Fiona Laurent and Xayah are voiced by mother and daughter Marli and Letícia Bortoletto, respectively.
  • Reality Subtext: Subverted, but worth mentioning; the champion Tryndamere shares the handle of Riot co-founder Marc Merrill, and it was initially believed that his marriage to Ashe was based off the fact Merrill's wife is named Ashley. This was debunked by Merrill himself as the creative team had no knowledge of this fact, meaning it was just a massive coincidence.
  • Release Date Change: The COVID-19 Pandemic caused the development of a few projects to be stalled, with varying levels of impact:
    • Arcane was originally set to be released in 2020, but following complications from the pandemic, it was bumped up to fall 2021.
    • Ruined King was originally set to be released in early 2021, but was then shuffled to an indeterminate "2021" date. This creates a rather unfortunate consequence of colliding with the plot of the Ruined King Saga as it was still being pushed forward in real life — with the reveal in July that Miss Fortune would fall to the Ruination and Pyke would join the Sentinels, this retroactively turned Ruined King into a prequel to the event rather than a proper preamble Riot was expecting it to be.
    • The January 2021 champion roadmap established that there would be three new champions throughout the year, and while Gwen was released as intended in April, Riot originally planned for a "gloomy mage yordle champion" to be released before the "unconventional Sentinel of Light champion". Following the April 2021 roadmap, Riot announced that the yordle champion was still being developed while the Sentinel of Light champion was ahead of schedule, so the release dates of the two were swapped, with Akshan being released in July (not that it stopped from Vex from being a major part in the Rise of the Sentinels event anyway).
    • Development issues also resulted in the final planned champion of 2021 — who would later be revealed to be Zeri — being released in January the following year. The significance of this is that Riot originally intended for both her and the following champion, Renata Glasc (both being Zaunite champions), to be released during the cross-company "RiotX Arcane" event during Arcane's premiere, but various circumstances forced them to miss it.
  • Renamed to Avoid Association: Ezreal's uncle was originally named Professor Lyte, a reference to former Lead Designer of Social Systems Jeffrey "Lyte" Lin, with the character appearing on the Howling Abyss as the shopkeeper on the northeaster side. Following the Piltover lore update in December 2016, the character was instead renamed to Professor Lymere, likely due to Lyte leaving Riot in May of that year. Riot would end up further distancing themselves from the handle following several reports of Lin's disgraceful behavior, including allegations of cheating on and psychologically abusing his ex-fiance — as of 2020, Riot's official stance on the shopkeeper NPC is that he's nameless (though several in-game interactions still mention him being Ezreal's uncle, with Ezreal's biography as of his 2018 VGU still confirming that Lymere exists in canon).
  • Role-Ending Misdemeanor: System and champion designer Daniel "ZenonTheStoic" Klein (lead dev of champions including Lucian, Azir, Tahm Kench, Taliyah, and Kayn) was fired from Riot following comments made in the periphery of the company's controversies in PAX West 2018. Riot held several panels that were largely exclusive to only female and non-binary attendants, a move that sparked much controversy online. While Klein was defending Riot's decision, he was let go as he "violated their social media policy", presumably because he got in a heated Twitter argument following his statements, or because he wasn't supposed to be engaging with the controversy, period.
  • Role Reprise:
  • Star-Making Role: Faye Mata when she voiced Lulu was practically kind of a newbie in voice acting business that she's mostly going to be known as just Lulu. However, she performed the role so well that it contributed to Lulu's ginormous popularity and from there, she starts racking up roles to become a prominent voice actress herself, racking up well known roles like Astolfo, Aqua or Malty, to name a few.
  • Teasing Creator:
    • Riot gets all over this on April Fool's Day. They released Lee Sin, the Blind Monk AND an Urf the Manatee Corki Skin at once. Not ONLY that, but in the following Journal of Justice, there were two articles that talk about both. One mentions how Urf could be revived, and the other was a talk with Lee Sin.
    • Riot then released this "spotlight". Game DESTROYING power, a "blurry" screen debuff, and the ability to kill members of your own team who defect to the other side. They released an actual spotlight video shortly after.
    • Their 2012 prank (a really bad 3D mode) was obvious (made even more so by the Urf cameo at the end), but nonetheless hilarious. Incidentally, they've actually named April Fool's Day "Urf Day."
  • Troubled Production:
    • The champion who became Azir was born out of an extended development cycle for what was originally a sand mage named Seth, conceived very early in the game's life. Issues sprouted due to his initial gameplay fantasy — that he could spread sand across the map to cast his abilities — proving to be too technically-demanding for the game, causing him to undergo many alternate playstyles and designs for several years before he was eventually codified as an "emperor soldier-summoner" that became Azir.
    • A storm dragon champion named Ao Shin was unveiled for release around 2013 — given an early tease as part of Spirit Guard Udyr's reveal comic — but ended up being delayed several times before being entirely scrapped and rebooted as Aurelion Sol, who came out in 2016. Much of the issues came from Ao Shin's design as a lengthy, serpentine dragon who was so long that he could wrap around enemy champions, which quickly became a burden for animators and game designers who struggled to figure out how to feasibly implement him into the game. When Aurelion Sol was created in Ao Shin's demise, his body was greatly reduced in length and made partially translucent just to ensure his hitbox was clear.
    • Skarner was voted for a full visual-gameplay update in early 2022, but ended up experiencing an extended production cycle as — by their own admission — Riot had tons of problems figuring out what to do with him. In a March 2023 blog post — over a year after development began — the team behind his VGU confessed they were still in a relatively early design stage, noting that Skarner's astonishingly low popularity has made it difficult to identify what exactly people like about Skarner to develop and expand on, finding his "lonely crystal scorpion" identity too limited and unexciting, while the risk of alienating what few fans he has by drastically modifying said concept being too large to ignore. Skarner's relaunch would finally end up being announced in March 2024 and set for release the month after.
  • Uncredited Role: Due to the game's non-union development and constantly-updating nature, Riot Games had a longstanding policy of not disclosing their voice actors unless the actors themselves publicly reveal themselves first (the way the public learned that James Faulkner voiced Swain's 2018 VGU was because of him tweeting his confusion over why he wasn't credited, as he was evidently unaware of the policy). While the rule was rescinded in early 2019 and Riot has since become more open in crediting newer actors, the identities of those behind many older champions remain unknown.
  • What Could Have Been: Examples can be found here.
  • Why Fandom Can't Have Nice Things:
    • Riot announced early 2019 that after a 50/50 split of new champions to visual/gameplay champion updates throughout 2018, they would be greatly slowing down on the VGUs in large part due to the champions' original fans constantly crying foul of "They Changed It, Now It Sucks!", even if the reworks are hugely-requested and overall well-received. As a tradeoff to this, however, Riot has also since become more careful in handling these relaunches, being more vocal and public about their development processes and taking fan feedback into greater account.
    • Between 2019-2020, Riot shut down the Community Events features on the EU and NA clients, a tool originally meant for small organizers to run online tournaments, offering tangible prizes like RP and codes for the Triumphant Ryze skin (which is the only way to obtain the skin). The feature was removed once it became clear that it was a massive target for exploits, where players would use use dummy tournaments to farm for RP and accounts with the Ryze skin code, both of which could be sold illicitly.
  • Word of Gay:
  • Working Title: As discussed in this dev post, newer champions go through a lot of different potential names with a huge amount of requirements, such as uniqueness, ease of abbreviation, ease of pronunciation, especially in localizations, whether it turns out to be a Foreign Cuss Word, etc. Some of the listed temp names include "Deadeye" (a champion who became Jhin as listed above in a What Could Have Been entry, and has a full "namestorm" list), "Heaven's Coil" (who became Aurelion Sol), "Stoneweaver" (who became Taliyah, which also became her final champion subtitle), and "Living Forge" (who became Ornn, who also went through subtitles including "The Hearth Father", "The Kiln King", and "The Daddy Issues of the Freljord").

    Champions Release Order 
  • Initial Roster
    • Alistar
    • Annie
    • Ashe
    • Fiddlesticks
    • Jax
    • Kayle
    • Master Yi
    • Morgana
    • Nunu
    • Ryze
    • Sion
    • Sivir
    • Soraka
    • Teemo
    • Tristana
    • Twisted Fate
    • Warwick
  • Released in 2009 (simultaneous releases will be in one line)
    • Singed, Zilean
    • Evelynn, Twitch, Tryndamere
    • Karthus
    • Cho'Gath, Amumu
    • Anivia, Rammus
    • Veigar
    • Kassadin
    • Gangplank, Taric
    • Malphite, Janna, Blitzcrank, Dr. Mundo
    • Katarina, Corki
    • Nasus
    • Heimerdinger, Shaco
    • Udyr
    • Nidalee
  • Released in 2010
    • Poppy
    • Gragas, Pantheon
    • Mordekaiser
    • Ezreal
    • Shen
    • Kennen
    • Garen
    • Akali
    • Malzahar
    • Olaf
    • Kog'Maw
    • Xin Zhao
    • Vladimir
    • Galio
    • Urgot
    • Miss Fortune
    • Sona
    • Swain
    • Lux
    • LeBlanc
    • Irelia
    • Trundle
    • Cassiopeia
  • Released in 2011
    • Caitlyn
    • Renekton
    • Karma
    • Maokai
    • Jarvan IV
    • Nocturne
    • Lee Sin
    • Brand
    • Rumble
    • Vayne
    • Orianna
    • Yorick
    • Leona
    • Wukong
    • Skarner
    • Talon
    • Riven
    • Xerath
    • Graves
    • Shyvana
    • Fizz
    • Volibear
    • Ahri
    • Viktor
  • Released in 2012
    • Sejuani
    • Ziggs
    • Nautilus
    • Fiora
    • Lulu
    • Hecarim
    • Varus
    • Darius
    • Draven
    • Jayce
    • Zyra
    • Diana
    • Rengar
    • Syndra
    • Kha'Zix
    • Elise
    • Zed
    • Nami
    • Vi
  • Released in 2013
    • Thresh
    • Quinn
    • Zac, Season 3 Karma
    • Lissandra, Season 3 Trundle
    • Aatrox
    • Lucian
    • Jinx
    • Yasuo
  • Released in 2014
    • Vel'Koz
    • Braum
    • Gnar
    • Azir
    • Kalista
    • Rek'Sai
    • Season 4 Sion
  • Released in 2015
    • Bard
    • Ekko
    • Tahm Kench
    • Kindred
    • Illaoi
    • Season 6 Poppy
  • Released in 2016
    • Jhin
    • Aurelion Sol
    • Season 6 Taric
    • Taliyah
    • Season 6 Ryze
    • Kled
    • Season 6 Yorick
    • Ivern
    • Camille
  • Released in 2017
    • Season 7 Warwick
    • Season 7 Galio
    • Xayah and Rakan
    • Kayn
    • Season 7 Urgot
    • Ornn
    • Season 7 Evelynn
    • Zoe
  • Released in 2018
    • Season 8 Swain
    • Kai'Sa
    • Season 8 Irelia
    • Pyke
    • Season 8 Aatrox
    • Season 8 Akali
    • Season 8 Nunu and Willump
    • Season 8 Ezreal
    • Neeko
  • Released in 2019
    • Sylas
    • Season 9 Kayle, Season 9 Morgana
    • Yuumi
    • Season 9 Mordekaiser
    • Qiyana
    • Season 9 Pantheon
    • Senna
    • Aphelios
  • Released in 2020
    • Sett
    • Season 10 Fiddlesticks
    • Season 10 Volibear
    • Lillia
    • Yone
    • Samira
    • Seraphine
    • Rell
  • Released in 2021
    • Viego
    • Gwen
    • Season 11 Dr. Mundo
    • Akshan
    • Vex
  • Released in 2022
    • Zeri
    • Renata Glasc
    • Bel'Veth
    • Nilah
    • Season 12 Udyr
    • K'Sante
  • Released in 2023
    • Milio
    • Naafiri
    • Briar
    • Hwei
  • Released in 2024
    • Smolder
    • Season 14 Skarner
  • Upcoming Releases
    • Unnamed Vastaya Solo Laner
    • Ambessa
    • Shyvana VGU

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