Aurora has been all but forgotten in League of Legends since her launch, with shiny new game mode Swarm instead dominating players’ game time and discourse. And, oddly enough, Riot Games must have known it would happen—it’s become a trend with event-plus-champion releases.
Since arriving in League on July 17, new champion Aurora has struggled to make a major splash in the game’s long-lasting fandom. Instead, everything has been focused around something else entirely: Swarm, the bold new bullet-heaven game mode Riot shipped alongside the champ. Unfortunately for the Vastayan mage, the combo move has basically killed all her hype.
The League fandom was quick to express their shock at how rapidly Aurora and her release had been swept under the rug, though some condemned her as too “uninteresting” to make a splash. Most blamed her theme for killing any excitement, while some also suggested Riot missed the mark with “more anime bullshit.”
That’s not to say Aurora hasn’t been popping up in many Summoner’s Rift matches—she’s already appeared in 73,462 games, according to League stat tracker U.GG—but with champion debuts normally huge events, it feels lackluster.
It turns a strange release choice from Riot into more of an odd pattern when we look backward at other flop debuts like Nilah and Naafiri. The latter arrived midway through 2023’s Soul Fighter bonanza and all but disappeared behind the two-vs-two-vs-two-vs-two League Arena playlist. The former didn’t have to battle a new mode, but 2022’s big Star Guardian celebrations put paid to the hype anyway.
Events don’t always overshadow characters, of course. Lillia and Yone (who both arrived during Spirit Blossom events) and Akshan (who headlined the Sentinels event) managed to escape the yoke. Still, it could be argued all three of those champions required spells of huge metagame ascendancy to break free.
We could see the Witch Between Worlds return to the fore once Swarm’s hype fades a little, especially if Riot gives her a good kick with buffs in Season 14’s next updates, but the damage seems done.
Instead, the League devs should consider a big lesson: Tie your new champions into the events you ship them with or split them up completely.
