Riot Games showed off the first official glance at the visual update for the champion Fiddlesticks, after the character won the ‘Champion Update’ vote in 2019.
After Fiddlesticks came out on top in that fan vote, Riot Games said in early 2020 that they wanted to “transform it into the most terrifying Champion in League of Legends.”
At first glance, the development team looks to have taken a step in the right direction, after releasing a horror movie-themed teaser to show off the character’s spooky new look.
In the trailer titled “Terror in Demacia,” which has already generated nearly half a million views in just a matter of hours, two Demacian guards are picked off one-by-one by a frightening scarecrow creature, which appears to be the new Fiddlesticks.
The champion’s ambush-like tactics in the trailer reflect the goals that the developers have for it as an in-game character. “We want Fiddlesticks to be the iconic ambush champion, with a kit centered around the concept of fear,” they said.
The video also shows it using a decoy on one of the two guards, which also reflects Riot’s goal of giving it more “deceptive abilities” to confuse opponents. They shared some of its new ambush abilities on their “secret” channel.
Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest updates on Esports, Gaming and more.
In the description of the trailer, it simply states that “an ancient fear awakens.” This goal of Fiddlesticks being an ancient evil in LoL lore was indicated back when Riot Games first announced the incoming changes in their dev blog, and that announcement showed they had some pretty sick and twisted ideas for him:
“As an utterly inhuman entity (regardless of what its true origins are), Fiddle lacks internal organs, a brain to think, or vocal chords to form sentences.
Any type of voice it might have wouldn’t sound like a person, but rather a projection: Just as a scarecrow is the crude facsimile of a human being, its voice could be a crude mimicry of people it has come across/killed.”
If this part of Fiddlesticks’ new background is true, perhaps the sounds of the first guard calling for help in the trailer weren’t from the guard at all, but from the scary scarecrow trying to lure in his second victim.
Fittingly, the trailer was released on Friday the 13th, so don’t be surprised if Fiddlesticks appears in your nightmares this evening.