So, I noticed with Akshan being the next champion to be released that there are no other male human Middle Eastern based champions. Most Shuriman champions are women and all the male champions are like Ascended or well, Malzahar.
Isn’t there any other male champion, perhaps not Shuriman in origin who’s kinda Middle Eastern?
External link →Akshan is actually inspired by South Asia (India specifically) Malzahar, Taliyah and Samira are all humans inspired by Middle Eastern culture. We do want to do a new make champion inspired by middle eastern culture in the future though
No but I thought they'd have their own part of Runeterra with their own culture yk? It just feels like they shoehorned south Asia and everything around Egypt into their culture. When I look at Shurima I don't see the palaces they got in south Asia
Akshan's descendants are not from Shurima just like Lucians are not from Demacia. Just because of Champion is currently in a specific region doesn't mean that their decedents are from that region. Xin Zhao is also a Ionian living in Demacia
Hey Reav3 are you able to share some real world cultures you’d like to get to in champs, are you interested in like more south american, south east asian etc. champs
I mean their is a lot of stuff that we want to get in just because we don’t really have it at all like a South East Asian inspired female,or a Latin inspired male. But we also want to add more to things we already have but just don’t have much of at this time. Our goal isn’t to just have like one good champion for al major cultures, our goal is to have the overall cast be a lot more culturally diverse even if that goal will take along time. South Asian Inspired Female and Middle Eastern inspired male are also high on our list even though we have Malz and Karma since those are older champs and getting some fresh champs inspired by those cultures would be great imo
Have you considered changing champs to fit more with certain real world cultures in VGUs or updates as part of the goal of making humans more diverse, like making Olaf more nordic whenever his time comes
We have done that when it makes sense, like talking Inuit inspiration for Nunu and Greek/Mediterranean inspiration for Pantheon. I think for VGUs we would never want to force something on a Champion that didn't make sense for them, but if their are things that make sense it can be a strong tactic
Is he originally from somewhere on the shuriman continent or are you planning to reveal to us new places soon?
He was born on Shurima, but he descendants were not
Were Sett and Seraphine supposed to be based on any cultures, they’re the only recent champs that I have a hard time putting a finger on where they’re from
Sett wasn't inspired by any specific culture, but Seraphine was Chinese inspired, which is why K/DA Seraphine also spoke Chinese in the comics.
Ah to be honest, it doesn’t come across as super clear in her base skin, I do like that you guys tried making a non Ionian asian champ tho. Do you guys usually consult the ERGs at Riot when doing champs based on their culture since I recall that they helped a ton on Senna
Yes, we started that process with Senna and have used it with most champs targeting specific cultural inspiration since Senna. Yeah, Seraphine was specifically targeting Chinese-American, and we went with a fairer skintone that took a lot of inspiration from younger, teenage Chinese-American vloggers.
If I understand your comment correctly, there is a male South East Asian champion in existence? Who is that?
Lee Sin is inspired by Thailand
Interesting, pretty much everyone associates him way more with East Asia due to his name.
Yeah, like many of our older champs I dont think he really nails his cultural inspiration well. We are for sure interested in doing a newer male champ inspired by SEA at some point in the future.
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