Riot has revealed that Noxian warlord Ambessa is joining League of Legends' ranks as a champion this year.
This news comes via the League of Legends Season 2024 lookahead, which features rundowns of everything from existing champion updates through to new champions and even a teaser for Arcane's second season.
Ambessa won't be League's next champion; that honor goes to Smolder, a rather cute-looking Disney-style dragon who will, according to Riot, be a more traditional champ than the likes of Aphelios, Zeri, and paint mage Hwei.
After Smolder, the team is looking to release a new Vastayan solo laner. Riot says that this champion has been planned for a while, but that initial development "took a bit of a detour" and resulted in Sylas (who's also the star of the side game The Mageseeker).
As well as Smolder, Ambessa, and the new Vastayan champ, Riot is also working on a couple of updates to existing champions.
First among these is Skarner, whose update has been planned for a while now. He's coming "in the first half of the year", according to Riot.
After him, two more updates are currently planned: dragon hybrid Shyvana and an as-yet unnamed champ who's getting a rework in line with their Arcane presence. Who could it be? Jayce? Heimerdinger? Viktor?
If you're an Arcane fan, you'll also appreciate that Riot has released a brand new teaser for the show's second season, which is scheduled to air in November.
The teaser is pretty short; it simply shows the mad doctor Singed sitting in a chair next to a hulking abomination suspended from the ceiling.
While the creature isn't explicitly named, it strongly resembles Warwick, a werewolf-style League of Legends champion who ties in closely with the lore of Zaun (and particularly with Singed). You can check out the teaser here.
On the technical side of things, Riot has also revealed that it's bringing the Valorant anti-cheat system Vanguard to League of Legends.
Like Valorant's implementation, Vanguard will run at the kernel level; this is pretty common for modern anti-cheat software, and it's not exactly alien to League, either.
Riot reiterates in the lookahead that Vanguard doesn't collect data other than "what is necessary to maintain integrity when playing our games". If you've already got Vanguard installed, you won't need to reinstall it, either.
Make sure to watch the full video if you're interested in League of Legends, as there's lots of info in there regarding upcoming skins for various champions, as well as where the game is at right now in the esports world.
