With the newly re-tooled Mordekaiser now out, it was time for Riot Games and their internal Champion Design team to move on to something else. Next on their post-it note was Pantheon--the once often played jungle champion has been left at the truck stop by every meta since the turn of 2017--and it had to be something big.
Today, Riot Games posted a new storybook page regarding Pantheons updated lore alongside a video that goes behind the scenes in the development (or redevelopment) of the Spartan-like champion.
In the video, some of Riot’s internal champion team talk about how difficult it is to rework a champion that has been part of the catalog for so long. People truly love this champion, and in a rework scenario, there’s a daunting feeling that nothing will ever be enough to both retain previous fans of the character and potential new fans of them.
“When we were updating Pantheon, we realized that there was a ton of things that a lot of players loved, and I think ideally we always want to keep that kernel of why there are still players who love that champion. So, we thought ‘how could we not break a characters and still bring it forward’,” said Michael Luo, a member of the Narrative team at Riot.
Many of the changes coming to Pantheon--who will remain a mortal human warrior touched by the god of war, Pantheon--are modern tweaks on his old kit, rather than completely new tools designed from scratch.
The biggest of which would be Pantheons Ult. Now called “Grand Starfall”, his ultimate ability is a sweeping angular attack (almost as wide as the entire lane) instead of a circular landing hero pose move. There is little shown in the video as to what the effects on enemies will be with Grand Starfall, but it could be classic damage and minimal crowd-control ability. All we have to go on is the video uploaded from Riot, so we will update things regarding Pantheons new tools when abilities and the like are revealed.
As far as his story, his new look, Pantheon is showing far more of an astrological and god-like aesthetic. However, the champion designers made note that “he’s using the physical spear/shield, like, he’s not using magic power to fight.”
Keeping a refreshed Pantheon grounded in his lore, as well as redesigning what made the character great to begin with is no easy task, but the behind-the-scenes video from Riot Games sure gets us excited about the champion again in League of Legends.
