what I gather from this extremely detailed video about Skarner's new lore is that Riot Games has an in-house café

His new lore is that Rammus is his father and he trained him in the arts of ADC assassination and taught him the lost ancient language of OKing.

Ixtal defo lacked stories and characters, so I'm not angry Skarner's lore changed, but hextech's origin being replaced is pretty sad.

Horror is not the word i'd use to describe anything that was said in this video

I just realized something tragic... With Skarner's complete overhaul and lore update to being an Ixtal champion, Riot gutted the Piltover lore. Hextech being tied to the Brackern is no longer a thing. Hextech in it's updated form (Arcane) is now just a magical rock, basically dumbed-down runestones. The Cammile/Seraphine connections to the Brackern is now completely dead.

"It leaves a lot of questions about the brackern and hextech" Yes? Maybe it would be a good idea to answer some of those questions in... I don't know... some kind of dev blog where you spill the beans or something? Cmon, we want to get nerdy. Get nerdy with us Riot.

they keep saying "horror" but all i see is commanding, powerful and protective. like a elephant. not really horror.

The Crystal Scar is weeping...

Just as a reminder, Skerner's original lore was about him waking up first and acting as a protector of his slumbering endangered species - then he had to come to terms with a newly-revealed fact that not only did humans almost cause his species' extinction, they were also unknowingly responsible for their creation as well (due to magical wars they waged). It's a powerful ambivalent feeling with no clear answers for morality, especially as humans were again mining in Kalamanda and harming the Brakern. Skarner had to protect them but also had to get involved in current politics in order to successfully achieve that. Piltover killing Brackern to plunder their soulstones was something that added clear negative traits to Piltover. Why is narrative scared of portraying Piltover as clearly morally wrong? Even in Arcane, the narrative is treating it as if it is not the sole reason for Zaun's deplorable state.

Riot: We don't want to disrespect the current player that love Skarner's lore Also Riot: Let's just make him slightly eviler Malphite

Not a bad coffee shop commercial, and it's not really clear about Skarner.

Can’t wait for the 30 minute necrit video

Emmmh, where is the horror base character mentioned in the intro?

I don’t feel new Skarner horrifying at all, or maybe we don’t share the same concept of “Horror”.

Now he has almost the same lore as malphite. A gigant that protect the region from the void and others dangers. Pretty good you legit turn upside down the lore just for that

"we want skarner to be a horror based character" Then they give him the cutest scorpion face ever seen and the cleanest body. Does riot knows how scorpions actually are? Old skarner was scarier than new one

Truly a horror-themed character! A scorpion politician.

This video really felt like a whole nothing burger, like there was really nothing said here other than you really didn't understand old Skarner

Skarner used to say 'I miss my kind' and this was sadder and more depressing than anything anyone could ever write into the lore and now theyve written that out and just made him big. He was the last living crystal scorpion soldier and you've killed him.

I didnt get anything "horror" from the explanation and why is he completely different from the current skarner? Not even purple anymore.

if you look at their past 10 dev videos you can tell the type of people working at Riot now are the ones that have panic attacks the moment you go against their ridiculous ideas all the devs that made past League good have left

If I'm just being honest. I don't want to see shots of an in-house cafe, and I'm not particularly interested in how one of senior writers are letting their personal preference influence the lore of a character they've done so little right by. Horror stories are cool, silly stories are cool, it all plays into making Runeterras lore really awesome and appealing. I like the parallels between Skarners noble intention, his almost chivalrous nature - where it once lied in his dedication to his lost kin, where now it lies in the people of Ixtal. I like the complexity of a character wanting to do his best, but being paranoid and dangerous in his own ight. But removing the core aspects of Skarner and the Crystal Scorpion fantasy is just removing Skarner as a whole. People remember Skarner for his unique design, "crystal scorpion" isn't some fantasy cliche, and if it somehow was, it's not any more cliche than "fire wizard x2" or "blue magic man x3". The old Brackern lore is what made hextech a more morally-complex resource to be utilized. The contrast between hextech and chemtech were highlighted as well. Hextech, as shown in Arcane, is far more powerful than Chemtech, but harder to come by. It seems like the cleaner, more efficient form of technological innovation, and it's like you get to take the moral high road in developing it - for those who don't know where the hextech comes from at least. Not to mention that now his interactions hardly make him sympathetic. He beefs with Zyra - I can't wait to see how they justify that. Zyra came from the Rune Wars, and she's a powerful plant wizard who likes eating people. How is that some sort of valuable asset to Skarner, who needs the jungle to repel invaders from harming Ixtal? Even if he didn't like her for some moral reason they posit, it could be played as making a deal with a devil - in direct reference to the character he is: willing to make sacrifice for his people, be it morally, or physically. I personally have never seen a Plant Witch being bargained with by a giant scorpion paranoid for the safety of his people. The possibilites for a morally complex and multi-layered situation being presented by the likes of a giant monster character would be a great call back to who Skarner was and what he represents in Leagues roster, in game and in universe. Instead, it seems to have been traded for a generic monster, with a superiority complex, trying his best to keep some people safe. There is little sympathy or rhetoric to be made for the character he is now. He's a big strong scorpion, who's a bit paranoid, and says he leads through respect but is juxtaposed by his merciless and borderline cruellness in his interactions. It doesn't show a moral complexity, it looks like a tyrant whos actions speak louder than his words. This is not my Skarner.

They will have to change a lot of Piltover lore that was based on the Brakern - Skarner existence. Wasn't Camille 's core lore that of the family in Piltover that monopolised the expeditions for the Brakern-soulheart extractions that led to Skarner waking up and through that they became one of the most influencial and rich families?

Always remember his old lore and how Seraphine used his dead siblings as fuel... Always remember!

Honestly I hate this. Reworking the whole lore to match arcane will not only kill ao many things that we love about the current Runaterra (as this new skarner shows), it will hinder the future narrative potential of Arcane.

Friendly reminder that Cho'gath is fifteen years old and still has no lore. Skarner has received two complete lore overhauls in this timeframe.

Look I'm happy you got to work on something you want, but come on, him being paranoid isn't horror in any way shape or form. I guess this new lore also retcons how Ixtal thought everything else was consumed by the void, since Skarner very clearly knows about it, as well as 10.000 years being weird considering the age of most other immortal beings in the lore.

was wondering why the video was getting ratio'd so hard, after watching the video and the absence of actual lore discussion i get it

Did she forgot that Ixtal was secluded because they thought the world ended with the Void invasion and the fall of Icathia?

"we don't want to disrespect the people who loves skarner" proceeds to change him from Shurima to Ixtal, FROM DESERT TO JUNGLE.

So what lore does Seraphine's crystal have now, those crystals used to have more lore than Sacho's

"We dont want to disrespect the people who love Skarner" but also basically Hextech lore was difficult and nuanced so now we have to get rid of it. Now we just have ethnostate Malphite and hes been moved to the region that is never talked about. God forbid piltover be a society with inherent problems like every other region, no piltover is perfect but its just the people which make it bad you see if only the "right people were in charge". New skarner gameplay is sick though

The Brackern were so cool. Shame that Skarner was so drastically changed. Feel like the character was removed entirely outside of being a scorpion made of earthy materials.

"We're going to keep the lore consistent by changing everything (again) and removing everything that made this character interesting in the setting."

So going with what was shown in Arcane, hex-crystals are just now magic rocks.

Horror where? You can't have Fiddlesticks and then Skarner and say horror.

Personally, I have mixed feelings about this video. As much as I like the VGU, I just hate the fact that the Lore behind Kalamanda and the Crystal Scar is literally being thrown away, as if it never existed in the first place. For new players it might be a refreshing look, but for Veteran's like me who have been invested in the Lore for a very long time, it's a punch in the face. While I understand that Dominion has not been played much by players during it's existence which ultimately led to it's removal, it still amazes me how relentless Riot has been in regards to treating the Lore around this place. Skarner's awakening was literally near the Crystal Scar. If Riot really wants to do that place any justice, at least mention his past, so that his Lore between Ixtal and Kalamanda are somewhat tied together. That alone would be enough.

the first 30 seconds of this video really are california personified

God Forbid Seraphine ends up in a bad light🙄

No one takes Riots more seriously anymore

You can try to erase the Brackern Genocide but some of us will never forget what Seraphine took from us.

"We hope his new lore is worthy- " Guys, you just changed everything about his character, just like you did to galio, you can't seriously believe this is good

Man it'd be so great if you had some sort of Card Game with a small but passionate competitive scene to really showcase all this great art and lore...OH WAIT

From cool crystal scorpion to generic stone whatever...

Am I the only one who thinks the new rework only having 4 legs looks goofy and unstable?

Arcane season 2 better do something good with the hextech lore to make up for this

and to think, people are trying to hype up the Riot MMO cause of the "lore potential!" and "omg Runterra IP is so amazing!" when this is the state of the lore, Riot gutted their narrative team and making Arcane canon ruined what little there was in the lore.

Okay, gotta be honest, I don't need to see cuts of the devs getting coffee. I just want to hear you talk about the lore. The director behind this is trying to be hip. "Ooo, look at this Rioter get a coffee! We're so casual & and cool, guys!" I prefer the way dev vids usually have been made. Just the dev(s) talking, whether it's sitting, standing, lying, upside down, etc, while talking about the topic. Usually with some League footage to help visualize the top. I don't need these cinematic cuts away to coffee time that has nothing to do with the topic. Unless those were Skarner coffee cups.

Nothing can't top his old lore Hex tech being fueled by the souls of creatures was god tier writing. You could have made him ixtali and a visual rework but keep that Arcane was great but man, unifying all of the lore was bad for a lot of reasons

Having to rewrite all that made piltover interesting just to not make Seraphine/Camile/Jayce/hiemerdinger into less morally complex feels pretty lame to me. The hextech being good for progress bad for innocent creatures in a way that mirrored real world whaling industry i thought was super cool and grounded the fantasy by showing that piltover's ambition leads to ignorance and harm for others WAS the part that made the city of progress stories worth reading into. I feel like Skarner should be smaller. To have him on a kaiju level instead of the size of a small plane is probably going to make him incredibly hard to work into new stories because he is just too massive for other characters to interact with. Just to counter out. I really like Skarner's new design, he is my most played champ of the past 2 years...but i feel like changing his lore does more harm than good overall.

I will always miss old skarner lore 😢

Riot reworks low play rate character mains of the characters gets excited butcher and change what they liked about the character mains stop playing champion sees more play due to having "modern" mechanics (46 dashes) Riot Games releases a dev update on youtube saying "We are happy with the changes we made :)"

Who will empathize with a paranoid? Is quiet hard. This will lead to one of two endings: uprising against him with a tragic end, or Skarner's change of mind.

I don't care that she's wearing a mask or has diff colored hair, the coffee cuts are just very distracting. She talks about giving skarner a "horror" theme but what I see is a cozy cafe with jazzy music intercut with coffee making lol... the funny thing is that it takes effort to film, stage, cut and edit this together. Had they put no effort and just filmed her at her work desk drawing or researching as b-roll, it'd be better suited, or anything else better suited to the theme

Wasn't the original lore more interesting lol haven't they changed the main thing why people liked this character lol

I will miss his old lore but I understand why they had to change it. Making him one of oldest leaders of Ixtal that became paranoid about the outside world is kinda intreasting.

We could have still left out his Crystal origin yah know, it doesn't even have to be Hextech, new Skarner just needs to have more crystals and less dirt smh... 🙃

Skarner and horror don't really go that well along. Just like when you called Yuumi the monster champ quota (so Lilia). The snuffing out of the Brakerns sound more like a big wipe from erase any stain on Seraphine (i guess their interaction is also lost)

Who fed gwen??! You're reported, gg go next!

What do you mean horror? He's just a boomer now

"we don't wanna disrespect the people who love skarner and the reasons why they love skarner" ...is this a bad joke I don't understand? because you are doing EXACTLY that. you are literally RIPPING HIM COMPLETELY out of the Crystal scar lore, where he was a vengeful spirit that disliked the mining operations on BASICALLY MAGIC CRYSTALS and shove him in a Magic-Racist society as a guardian???? How is that NOT disrespecting the people that love skarner? You are literally deleting the last ties ANYTHING has to the crystal scar! Thanks for wiping one of my favorite original lore pieces completely out of the League universe and F'ing up one of my favorite characters while you are at it.

Still waiting for where "horror" fits into this champion

Imaging having 2 years to create the lore and learning nothing except unclear broad platitudes of paranoia.

I hope Cho'Gath doesn't end up with this kind of ""horror"" lore treatment.

so what i got from this is that Elyse and her team think that kaiju = horror, just automatic, don't need anything threatening or scary looking a kaiju is just simply dread and horrifying. that or that Skarners paranoia makes him a scarry.

This one does not spark joy.

This video would NOT survive IG comment section 💀💀💀

So you guy completely take away the only "bad" aspect of Hextech in general and Piltover as a whole? Like yes, everything is canon now, including the conflict between Zaun and Piltover, but until it fully canon, Piltover is now the suppose "goody two shoes" region that has nothing bad ever happened

Anyone else feel like this whole video was just made to flex on us that their workplace has a built in epic cafe and ours doesn't? Because that's all I got out of this video.

They didn't fire that Blue haired woman?

old lore >> new lore

I like that we get a new villain after so many of them were retconned to tragic or misunderstood characters. What I do not like is that it had to be skarner cause the idea of being the last of his kind trying to protect anything left of his kind and their hive mind connection that makes the cry in agony when one of them becomes Hextech was amazing lore.

why riot? how could you stoop so low? also why do I see the biggest sheet of bedding in first 5 seconds?

Someone told you this reaction would happen. You didn't care, though, and did it anyway.

just wanted to login and got this jumpscare deluxe. unlucky i go again next patch

So, no longer will we have depressed, friendless Skarner? 🤔

Ok, I understand why he is paranoid, and why he is so ruthless, if he's around for that long he saw everything He saw Morderkaiser reign and his resurrection, the Runewars and the war of Shurima and Icathia, he saw the void rift been open, the fall of Shurima, the Darkin Wars... But although the totally deserved lack of trust he has towards humans, he also loves them And that's the part that should be better explored, he is like an old worried grandpa, he can be rash but at the end of the day he only wants to see them smile while safe from danger Using "horror" to describe him is very misleading, unless you're talking about the horror of losing your own sanity, horror of giving voice to your paranoia, if that's the horror we're talking about, I'm on board But I really hope Skarner doesn't become the "evil insane tyrant" but the "old conservative protector" instead

We need hard times again. Coming soon.

Dont think they know what horror means

I mean, the horror was in the mirror al the time.

Dont like it. I miss who Skarner was. Riot is gutting a lot of their champions to 'rework' them into a narrative that they could have just made a new champ for. New Skarner functions just differently enough that he could have been his own character and Skarner could have stayed in Shurima and could have just fleshed him out with a short story like Rek'sai. At first i was excited for champs to have their lore tweaked to fit a more cohesive narrative but now theyre just rewriting to just because and it feels bad.

If i was in charge of skarner's new lore, I don't think I'd ever show my face to the fan base. That is if I knew what people liked about the champion whose personality and story I was in charge of re-defining .

So no crystals?

as far as redoing his lore from the ground up, this is pretty cool, but there still was not a really good reason to change it. the previous lore was better. the opened the door to so much future content, and overall was one of the single coolest parts of Piltover/hextech lore imo. This lore shift not only downgrades Skarner's character, but also Hextech as a whole within in leagues canon from my perspective. Regardless I see Riot is hellbent on changing it for whatever reason, and opinions outside of that do very little if anything to stop that change. If his lore had to change, this is a good route, but it's still worse than what we had unfortunately.

Cool. I'm gonna enjoy reading his colour story.............there's gonna be a colour story.....right?

Yea, sure his new lore is cool, but that's not really Skarner anymore, is it?

They should rework illaoi into a cuthulu tentacle monster

Necrit can surely make a 40 min video out of this, right?

Like if you would’ve rather gotten a Dev post.

look at that monster

Gragas says that Skarner is horror. Epic.

>Blue hair >Wearing a mask in 2024 >In charge of Skarner reworked lore Welp, there goes any hope I had for this rework not being a dumpster fire

Great, now Hextech is just this perfect and convenient magic technology with no downsides and Scarner is a generic scorpion with Isolationist views. THANKS RIOT!

Omg, Tahm Kench is talking about the new lore, he's so cool

I'm on board. But where is the horror?

So basically, Skarner isn't the Skarner we knew anymore; he's just another big, generic character now. He's lost all his charm and personality. They should've just spruced up his look and gameplay without messing with his original story.

can make this lore up in 5 minutes

blue haired kills a good story again

why do i know who she's voting for. i shouldn't know that

3 years of development aint noway riot needs to layoff more people