A Question Regarding Champion Lore Updates and Voice-Overs

So as the title suggests, I'm getting a bit concerned when it comes to these massive Lore events in the vein of and , not because I'm particularly opposed to their new lore per say, but rather because of where the Lore changes leave their characters in-game. Put simply, I'm kind of concerned that all the bluster behind these new Lore events kind of gets lost in translation when people go in-game, and that the characters represented in the lore are somewhat incongruent with the characters as they appear in-game.

Now I remember there was an earlier post back when was having his lore event that a Voice-over was likely coming but that it wasn't going to have any particularly high priority when it came to upcoming projects, especially in regards to the champion update team. But the reason why this doesn't necessarily inspire much faith in me that we'll see Varus' character become represented in-game is that Riot actually already has a champion whose been in a pretty awkward position since her lore update, and that's our dear Sarah Fortune.

Since the Burning Tides event back in 2015, has been pretty mismatched when it comes to her Lore persona, being a strong pirate captain attempting to re-establish order and right the power-vacuum that she made when she dethroned . Throughout subsequent stories, we've seen a lot of depth to who exactly Miss fortune is, but if you'd never read her lore, then you'd probably think she was just a cocky sexy pirate lady. With her out-dated VO, you get no particular hints as to what the woman is about, what her ambitions are, or what she's endured. The Co-Op vs. Ai bots give more connection to her lore than anything else in-game, and even then that's just a mild taunt towards Gangplank. Even if the current Miss Fortune is exemplary of how MF was before the events of Burning Tides, the issue then is that most of the recent lore on her revolves around the events following her move against Gangplank, whether it's her interactions with the other gangs around Bilgewater, or the pressures of trying to defend her town from the Harrowing without Gangplank's unifying presence. Basically there's a lot of depth to her character that's completely unexplored because her VO isn't up to date.

Moving over to , I said this during his Lore reveal, but I might as well say it again. Since this is the path that Riot has chosen to take Varus, I'm not going to try to get them to completely shift the direction they've taken the character, especially after all the time and effort they put into his lore reveal, and the subsequent knowledge that Varus is officially League's first confirmed Gay champion (Technically). The issue here is similar to Miss Fortune, the characters are not represented. Personally I rather enjoy when games don't hammer a character's orientation down my throat, because I think it's more respectful to the character, but the issue with Varus, is that Varus isn't actually Varus. Varus is Now Three separate personalities living inside a single entity, each vying for control over the others, with Val and Kai fighting against the Darkin Varus, and Varus attempting to fight against them and appeal to Val's short-temper and desire for retribution. As a character concept, even setting aside the ordeals with orientation and Varus' old lore connections, this is an incredibly entertaining premise, and has a lot of potential for further growth and character interactions, since we have effectively 4 different character interactions (Val/Kai, Kai/Varus, Val/Varus, Varus/Val/Kai), but without an updated Voiceover effectively none of these characters exist. The closest you could make a comparison for is that Varus the bow is somewhat represented because Varus of old still had an emphasis on Revenge, but even then we've had hints that Varus has a sister that he's searching for, as well as an overarching story regarding the fate of the Darkin race. Varus is now 3 people, but in-game none of them are really present.

As far as goes, there's not much that I can say here that I haven't expanded upon with and . Annie has a lot of new baggage, having accidentally caused the death of her father, being witness to the death of her closest friend, and ultimately killing her step-mother. In game, she's largely unchanged, though technically the last lines of her Bio, mentioning her using her appearance to get food and shelter, and her obliviousness to danger gives more credence to her original VO than the other examples.

Now in all honesty, I rather like the new lore, and I like the characters they represent. I just want to see those characters in game, and at least in regards to how long that has been on the backburner, I'm concerned that without expressed intent to match the in-game characters with their lore, that we may not see these characters actually become realized. It's been over 2 years since Burning Tides, and honestly I'm just kind of hoping we can get some sort of time-frame, because Soon™ isn't exactly reassuring. Either way, I suppose I'll pose the question. What do you all think about the importance of champion voice-overs in regards to the big lore-events? I know I could have gone into the softer Lore updates that happen as each area is updated, but I wanted to keep my gripes to the champions who have additional fanfare given to their Lore updates.

Either way, thanks for reading!