League of Legends Player “Declares War” on Arcane Fans Over Katarina
A few days ago, Riot Games released the official trailer for the new season of League of Legends titled “Welcome to Noxus.” An interesting point is that the video production unit is also the team behind the success of the Arcane series, so viewers could quickly recognize the familiar artistic style while watching the trailer. However, immediately after this video was released, it ignited a “drama” in the League of Legends community due to details related to Katarina.
The story began when a segment of the audience watching Arcane (who do not play League of Legends) expressed their fondness for Katarina in the trailer. It would not have been an issue if they had not attempted to “pair” this assassin with another female character, claiming that Katarina in the video resembled Vi from Arcane. This immediately faced a fierce backlash from the League of Legends gaming community, who felt that this was a disrespectful act towards the game’s lore.
The reason stems from the fact that Katarina in many of Riot Games’ titles is often depicted as having a complicated romantic relationship with Garen. In some skins like Battle Academy or the game Legends of Runeterra, Katarina and Garen are also portrayed as a real couple. Thus, many long-time League of Legends players are ready to “declare war” on the aforementioned Arcane audience segment for such an unreasonable “pairing.”
Katarina is the latest example of Arcane’s negative impact on League of Legends
A rather “bitter” truth that Riot Games themselves have acknowledged is that the success of the Arcane series did not bring many new players to League of Legends. Riot Games’ leaders have shared that many viewers, after watching and enjoying the Arcane series, created accounts and tried playing League of Legends. However, they only played 1-2 matches or completed the tutorial and did not continue playing League of Legends. This inadvertently increased the amount of data that Riot had to process, even though actual player growth did not occur.
Coupled with the new “drama” that has erupted in the community, Riot Games finds themselves in a difficult position in trying to satisfy long-time League of Legends players and new viewers after Arcane. A more concerning point is that the controversies surrounding this issue show no signs of cooling down from both League of Legends players and Arcane fans. From Riot’s side, it is hoped that they will have some announcement or action to quickly ease the situation, preventing this tension from dragging on.