New LoL Champion Announced: Gwen
Gwen's journey began with a goal, as it does for many champions: to build a "peppy skirmisher." Following Viego with a champion of equal solemnity and doom would have made League feel a bit too edgy, so the team turned to the joy side of the edgelord scale.
“We already have a few champions like Lux and Seraphine who fall on the ‘joyful optimism' spectrum,” says narrative writer Michael “SkiptoMyLuo” Luo. As a result, we wanted to be certain that we find a new solution. One viewpoint we haven't considered is that of someone who is awestruck by everything, including the tiniest details like the feel of grass or the scent of the sea. Things we usually overlook because they are so ordinary to us.
Paul "Zeronis" Kwon, Gwen's original concept artist, used this concept to create a cast of characters that could relate to the unbridled joy of life. However, one idea, in particular, stood out to everyone and that is the doll.
Every champion should have a distinct silhouette that draws attention to their source of strength. Sona has her crazy rad keyboard etwahl, Senna has her BFG, Darius has his hammer, and Senna has her BFG. As a result, when Zeronis drew Gwen's early design, he gave her enormous scissors. And it was as though they had struck a chord.
Gwen is intriguing because she is from a millennium ago, but Lonewingy states that he wanted to ensure that she maintained some solidarity with the Shadow Isles, which is where she is classified for League purposes. So he concentrated on ways to make her scissors more evil, and I just found that... Scissor engineering is extremely difficult! He had no idea scissors were so clever! He spent a lot of time studying their design to make sure they would open and close properly, particularly for something from that era.
As Gwen is a skirmisher, she can offer skirmishers an advantage in their never-ending search for the perfect 1v9 by giving them a power zone where they excel. And the team had one in mind when they began working on Gwen.
Champion designer Dan "Riot Maxw3ll" Emmons remembers, how he had actually been working on Gwen's zone control spell before the rest of the team started—before peppy skirmisher was even an idea. When Gwen began to take shape, the devs decided to hold this spell because it suited her personality. It's as if she's saying that she has all the fun equipment, but you don't, and then she gets to compel her adversary to play her game on her terms.
The Bottom Line
Gwen could come across as weird at first. After all, she's torn between Camavor, a long-dead kingdom, and Runeterra, a strange new world she's eager to discover. She can, however, exude a sense of familiarity and comfort that transcends time.
Perhaps she may allow you to recall a favorite doll, or memories of playing before the streetlights came on, or childhood fantasies about the person you could become. If not, you should at least have a new champion to run it down with.
