LoL players are convinced one champion is de-aging with each new skin

League of Legends fans will always notice imperfections and inconsistencies when it comes to their favorite champions, and sometimes they’ll be vocal enough to let Riot know about them. 

One such inconsistency was mentioned on the League subreddit earlier today when a player pointed out that Darius is apparently getting younger with each new skin that gets released for the champion.

The post on Reddit showed Darius’ original splash art and how the champion looks noticeably older in his original art from 2012 than he does in the current day, using newer skins like Crime City Nightmare Darius and Lunar Beast Darius to emphasize the point. Part of this could be due to a natural evolution in League’s art style, but it could also be attributed to a more specific trend surrounding the champion. 

Darius’ older splash arts feature far more prominent battle scars, facial wrinkles, and heavy streaks of gray hair. In recent splash arts, though, the champion looks like he’s de-aged, with all of those imperfections surrounding maturity seemingly wiped off his face. In addition, his gray hair has been fully dyed black in newer skins. While it’s not uncommon for champions’ visuals to be adjusted to fit a certain skin line’s theming, some players have concerns that champions’ core physical traits can occasionally be forgotten. 

“Hear me out, I’m happy that my guy is receiving new skins and all the … attention, I just wish they would stop moving away from what Darius’ character fantasy is: Veteran General,” the original poster of the thread said. Another commenter in the thread argued that it’s really no big deal. “Alternate universes in alternate points of time,” they said. “That’s the whole fantasy behind skin lines.”

In the new reveal for Darius’ latest skin, Porcelain Darius, the character looks noticeably younger in comparison to some of his older skins. This continues a trend set with skins like Academy Darius, in which he looks like he’s in his late 20s rather than stages of middle age. 

Although Darius’ official age is never stated in the lore, he does give off the appearance of a grizzled, mature veteran. While it’s likely that Darius’ aging process was accelerated due to the stresses of war in Noxus, it’s unclear exactly how old the champion is. We’d likely have to guess, though, that he’s probably in his 40s or 50s.