League of Legends will soon have flashy new “Finisher” animations in the main Summoner’s Rift and Howling Abyss game modes, with Riot Games running tests on the VALORANT-style collectable cosmetics on League‘s PBE this cycle.
These “finisher” cosmetics were first spotted by League dataminer @SkinSpotlights soon after the Riot-hosted testing realm was updated on Wednesday, with the first wave of the celebration animations expected to revolve around Nexus explosions. The string codes included references to the Nexus—including an updated image of the League objective—as well as codenames and a “Total Owned” count suggesting more will be added eventually.
Details will be relatively low until an official Riot announcement on League‘s Finishers arrives sometime this year, but the vibe around the leaked cosmetics place them firmly in the same ballpark as VALORANT‘s gun animations of the same name.
In Riot’s modern hero shooter, Finishers activate after a player earns the last kill of the round. While relatively quick in most cases, they’re always themed around the skin bundle they’re included in and remain until the map resets. In earlier releases, like Prime guns, the Finisher calls forth a wolf head that chomps on the defeated enemy. More premium packages, like Spectrum, even fill the whole skybox with rainbows as trance music plays.
Today’s leaked codes don’t mention kills or anything beyond the Nexus, but Dot Esports imagines the cosmetic won’t only stay tied to League games’ last moments for long.
This wouldn’t be the first time League‘s had Finisher-style animations in its history; while casual and ranked modes on the Rift have never seen the splashy effects, chaotic Ultra Rapid Fire limited-time mode had several back in the mid 2010s. These included Orbital Laser, Heartsplosion, and, Spooky Urf, which were each activated by equipping 35RP icons.
It’s been quite some time since these ran, however, with the three iconic finishers only popping up when URF originally ran in 2016. They were quietly shelved after that first outing.
Some League skins also have Finisher animations boiled into their takedown designs, including Cosmic Lux, Storm Dragon Lee Sin, and Faker’s $500 Ahri skin. Empyrean Pyke also has a huge explosion on his R that only plays after pentakills.
Having Finishers on special takedowns—be it first blood or multikills—was, unsurprisingly, the biggest request from League players after the leaks, with many claiming having the feature tied to Nexus victory animations will mean it’s “barely seen.” Others suggested it was better to keep it simple to avoid overloading gameplay.
Regarding how long the testing period may run on these Finishers, the code doesn’t hold any clues. Dot expects these to run out as a selling point for the start of the 2025 League season, which has been hyped as the season to “change League forever.”
All League Finisher details are, of course, tentative until any formal reveal.
Published: Sep 18, 2024 11:56 pm