Riot Games has found itself in League of Legends players’ crosshairs. The community is accusing the developer of recycling existing VFX assets into the newest Faerie Court cosmetics, and it wouldn’t be the first time.
The recently announced Faerie Court cosmetics add a second wave of skins for champions like Lux, Soraka, Tristana, and Lillia to League of Legends. Even though the cosmetics have similar whimsical fantasy themes, League players spotted some striking similarities with the previous cosmetic set.
On League’s subreddit, players shared pictures comparing the existing Faerie Court Seraphine’s Q with Lux’s E ability, saying: “They are literally the same, it’s not even subtle.” The similarities don’t stop there, as Seraphine’s auto-attack completely matches Lux’s auto-attack, which has the same magenta-pink-colored hue.
Moreover, with one of the first-wave Faerie Court cosmetics, Ezreal’s Q fully matches the colors of Lux’s Q, and there is a subtle difference in design, leading to gameplay clarity issues where players with an Ezreal/Lux bot lane could easily exploit their similar-colored abilities to deal more damage to enemies.
It gets worse—Faerie Court Lux is also strikingly similar to another Porcelain Lux cosmetic, where their ultimate abilities summon a flower that shoots a damaging beam. When you look at both ultimates, it’s clear one is just a recolor.
Earlier, players accused the League of Legends developer of reusing VFX assets in Morgana’s Coven skin on a Nilah cosmetic in the same set. The champions have similar VFX assets, making their abilities look almost identical.
“This is too lazy. Capitalism and milky,” one user said, while another pointed out how skins with similar VFX assets make distinguishing between different abilities harder, which makes the game less visually clear. “God, this is so pathetic from Riot. Imagine asking players for $15 for a recolor copy paste job,” another user chimed in. It’s clear the community feels Riot isn’t giving them enough bang for their buck.
Riot Games hasn’t commented on the similarities between the cosmetics yet, but hopefully the developer is taking the feedback onboard to improve its future designs.