League of Legends’ magical girls return in a multi-game summer event
A big Star Guardians event is coming to Riot Games’ League of Legends, Wild Rift, and Legends of Runeterra on July 14. A host of characters from the various rosters are getting new Star Guardian skins and cosmetics, and new lore about this alternate universe will play out over two patches throughout the summer. Riot will also release a Sessions album centered around Star Guardian Taliyah.
The Star Guardians subculture is one of the most popular ones within the greater League of Legends lore. Star Guardians are high school students entrusted with cosmic powers to defend their homes from terrifying threats.
“The last time we revisited Star Guardian, we really saw that our players loved it and engaged with it,” said Stephanie Bedford, a narrative producer at Riot Games, in a phone call with Polygon. “So we just really wanted to deliver on that.”
For those who are just learning about these adorable skins, Riot released a “The Story So Far” timeline that encapsulates all of the established lore about this alternate universe so far. It’s a classic magical girl story, with a force known as the First Star picking guardians to defend humanity against the cosmos. The Star Guardians are depicted as high school kids, balancing a dual identity of teenager and hero.
The previous waves of Star Guardians have had cinematics, animations, music, a PvE event, and short stories published on the Universe website — but story details were all quite vague. Players could glean an overall setting and a few key events, but not a narrative throughline. What we knew mostly came from the skin biographies and alternate voice lines from legendary skins.
But despite the limited nature of this narrative, fans still fell in love with the Star Guardians.
Read more on polygon.com
