Aatrox was a big part of Runeterra's wars. Various depictions of a winged war god.....just straight retconned.
Eh.
I actually stopped liking Aatrox as much when I learned his lore the first time around. Seemed really generic to me; I much prefer the new one that ties him to known entities and gives him some stake in current geopolitical climate. My least favorite champs are the ones with demi-god like powers and 0 connections; The Kindred, Tahm Kench, Evelynn, Bard... we have too many of these.
Nasus, Xerath, Aurelion Sol... These are much better champions, tbh. Even on the same power level and with some of the same tropes, they have a stake in the world. It just makes for better stories about them that they actually have to care about things that are happening around them.
I'm not sure how this was retconned.
Aatrox still has wings in his new form,even if he just uses them during his ult(which is likely the moment where he'd make the biggest impact on the battlefield).
So aside from the fact that the depictions look a bit different now(which isn't really dealbreaking,I mean one of these pictures even has wings that look more like the new ones),we don't have any info if this was retconned or not.
Though I wouldn't be surprised if it was,I mean the big lore retcon was introduced after Aatroxs release.
Riot doesn't care about any old lore. If you put effort into following the lore then just keep preparing yourself for disappointment as this won't be the last ret-con.
A lot of that past Aatrox lore contradicts the current canon lore and timeline so yeah it had to be disgarded.
Personally, I doubt that it's been retconned. If anything, this can still apply to new Aatrox. The difference is that with new Aatrox, we'll actually know the origins of the Darkin as a whole for once (which is starting to look like something along the line of Fallen Gods?).
