New Volibear Skin Coming After Visual Rework

Volibear owners will receive a free skin once the champion's visual and gameplay update has been complete, Riot Games announced Tuesday in a developer video.

Volibear's redesign briefly flirted with a Lovecraft-inspired eldritch horror aesthetic, and though players responded positively to the new look, Riot Games felt it was too great a departure from Volibear's appearance on League of Legends' live servers.

In an attempt to appease those players who liked the redesign and those who preferred Volibear's current aesthetics, Riot Games followed through on the Lovecraft design, but will relegate it to a skin rather than Volibear's base look. All players who already own Volibear will receive the demonic Volibear skin for free once Riot Games has completed the VGU.

From then on, the demonic skin will be available for purchase as a normal skin.

"This isn't something we plan on doing for future VGUs, but in this case we felt like it was the right decision," said champions product manager Ryan "Reav3" Mireles.

A dev blog slated for later this year will provide an in-depth look at Volibear's VGU production process.