Aurelion Sol rework: League of Legends’ next CGU update

With over 150 champions on the League of Legends roster, it’s no surprise Riot Games has to continually refresh and update older characters. One such champion for a CGU (comprehensive gameplay update) is a big — but welcome — surprise. Riot will return to the sassy Space Dragon Aurelion Sol. The announcement was shared in the latest champion roadmap from Riot, which also gives details on other upcoming new releases and reworks.

Riot used to prioritize VGUs (visual and gameplay updates), for which the candidates used to be very obvious. The game’s very oldest models from its launch in 2009 were largely upgraded with new graphics, voice over, ability reworks, lore, and models. Once all the extremely janky, pizza-footed champions were removed from the game and replaced with nice modern versions, Riot started to move on to newer champions that never really found success. Aurelion Sol is an interesting case because many players love his personality and voice over; he’s David Bowie mixed with a narcissistic, all-powerful star forging dragon from the cosmos. His gameplay can be finicky and requires precision. He also needs to keep his skill level high.

As the road map post notes,

Tons of you really loved and wanted to play a gigantic, arrogant star dragon. Unfortunately, we didn’t really deliver on a gameplay kit that matched that excitement, as most of you dropped him after just a few games. His playrate plummeted to one of the lowest in the game, where he has been ever since. He still ranks in the top 10 most loved visuals when we conduct champion surveys. However, his gameplay is always at the bottom. We’ve tried some small tweaks to ASol, but when we discussed what we should do to help him out, we came to the consensus that we should just start his gameplay over from scratch.

The champion roadmap also shares details on Skarner, the crystal scorpion who used to slumber beneath the desert sands of Shurima, and an update on a Void Empress champion who demands your total submission. Riot also shared details on an oyster-loving brawler champion in Bilgewater and a high skill top lane tank who also hails from Shurima. Aurelion Sol is currently planning to rework the site at some point towards the end of this year.