Out of all the multitude of skinlines that could’ve been chosen, Riot Games decided on Anima Squad for League of Legends’ premiere Summer 2024 in-game event.
Not only that, players are getting a whole new game mode that features these reimagined champions in new Anima Squad skins, including two prestige editions.
It adopts the bullet heaven survivor genre, a first in League of Legends PvE mode history. Because of the nature of the genre, it’ll also be the first time in League history where you’re not going to be using QWER keys — instead, you’ll move your character using WASD.
While the environment and mechanics were entirely built from scratch, the character models were not. Still, it was clearly a lot of work.
ONE Esports got the opportunity to attend a media preview at Riot HQ to talk about and play Operation Swarm Anima Squad before it hits PBE.
Read on to find out how the dev team arrived at these decisions during its development and the factors that they took into account.
Why is League of Legends’ summer event centered around a PvE game mode?
The last two PvE modes before Anima Squad was Odyssey in 2018, and Invasion back in 2017, which let players immerse themselves in the beloved Star Guardian universe.
Sope May, Product Lead, told ONE Esports that the team always held the intention to revisit PvE. The introduction of Arena opened up new opportunities in the modes space to pave the way.
“The player reception to what we were doing there, coupled with the ongoing growth and interest in the survival genre gave us a chance to pitch a PvE game mode that could start to crack a certain degree of replayability unseen in previous PvE modes,” said Sope.
The brainchild behind the bullet heaven survivor PvE mode is Kevin “Riot Sirhaian” Leroy, a Senior VFX Artist at Riot Games who pitched this idea several years ago, but got turned down as it wasn’t the right landscape or time.
Years later, when the PvE topic started brewing internally again, he asked around and realized that many peers were also thinking of a bullet heaven survivor mode. A big fan of the genre, he picked up new skills and built a prototype to show the team and eventually received the greenlight to build it.
These fun game modes aren’t necessarily to draw in players on the long term. While it would be great if they could stay in the ecosystem, the goal of this PvE mode is to present a “more novel, more unique experience,” commented Creative Director Ben Skutt.
The mode also gives Riot the leeway to expand alternate universes. In turn, League of Legends players get a chance to build more connections with these reimagined characters in a deeper way.
How Riot Games decided on using the Anima Squad skinline for this PvE mode
Taking heed from past successes, it’s no surprise that we’re getting another big PvE mode integrated with a skinline. Thematic immersion is something that League of Legends players outwardly enjoy.
Eduardo Cortejoso, Modes Product Lead, shared with ONE Esports that the team has changed the way they evaluate PvE modes over the years. “Modes like those for Odyssey or Star Guardian had very strong early engagement, but aggressively tapered off once they were ‘solved’ or ‘done’,” he said.
While the Anima Squad PvE mode doesn’t necessarily solve everything to achieve sustained engagement, he believes they took it in “a step in the right direction.”
As to how they locked down Anima Squad, Ben told ONE Esports that they initially put up all historical skinlines alongside new ideas on a board during a brainstorm session, then discussed an array of angles to decide which had the most potential.
“We have a handful of skinlines like Star Guardian that players love and we know could fit a large event. On the other hand, players also tell us they crave novelty and for that reason it’s important we have a number of skinlines to consider when building big moments like this,” said Ben.
“Anima Squad was one we all agreed had greater potential, so we decided to give it a shot!”
Xayah but no Rakan — how champions were chosen for Anima Squad PvE mode
Once the skinline was decided, the team then deliberated which champions would be best suited for the theme.
Jinx and Riven are the only two from the original skinline that are playable in Swarm Operation. They were included to give players a sense of continuity, especially since they didn’t have an event in 2022. Jinx, in particular, is special because she was their very first prototype, the Modes Team told press.
“A lot of us meet and have conversations across different initiatives to understand where we can provide value for game mode and where we provide value specifically for players,” said Eduardo. “And we tried to determine which champions we thought players would be most excited about.”
They also talked to the Skins Team, where more detailed considerations were discussed, such as the inclusion of sword users (which ended up being Yasuo), the need for a tank, such as Leona, or a ranged DPS like Xayah.
These back-and-forth deliberations about whether these champions could exist within the story, alongside data, informed the Modes Team. They even created a subversion in Yuumi!
While Rakan wasn’t included in the final roster, Eduardo pointed out a cool Easter egg in Anima Squad PvE mode that players should look out for.
“If you evolve Xayah’s weapon, the evolve is actually a feather from Rakan [that] bounces around off enemies and then comes back and shields her, so we got a nod to him,” Eduardo told press.
“We’re very much looking forward to seeing the potential of what PvE could look like in League moving forward, but we’ll be picking and choosing what we learn from,” he concluded, speaking on the future of PvE modes to ONE Esports, highlighting that it’s hard to judge all PvE content through the lens of a specific genre.
“We will keep a very close eye on how players engage with a PvE-centric experience, how interested they are in more takes on it and how we could deliver content to players at a reasonable pace,” Edurado added. “PvP modes are naturally more durable and stay fresher compared to something like a PvE mode, which needs an injection of new content to keep the experience interesting for players.”
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