League of Legends launched a whopping 12 years ago now, and so, naturally, there’ll sometimes be some visual discrepancies between the MOBA game’s earliest champions and those released much more recently. To help bring older champions up to the standards of new ones, Riot Games recently announced it would be launching some “art and sustainability updates” – known as ASUs – and we’ve now got a glimpse at the one coming up for veteran League champion, Caitlyn.
In a clip showcasing the new champion theme for Caitlyn, which is coming up as part of her ASU (below), Riot has also given us a peek at her new look with some updated skin splash art and other visuals that accompany the music. For example, at around the 0:27 mark, you can see the new-style Officer Caitlyn splash art which is a pretty big departure from the existing version.
It’s not clear how the updated skin will appear in gameplay just yet, but at the 0:23 mark you can get a look at the character model’s concept art, which helps us imagine more easily what the final look will be in-game.
Similarly, there are glimpses of the updated character models and splash art for Caitlyn’s Arctic Warfare (0:43), Headhunter (0:57), Lunar Wraith (1:12), Resistance (1:54), Sheriff (2:11), Safari (2:23), and base skins (2:46) at those timestamps. The champ’s Arcade (1:19) and Pool Party (1:38) skins don’t look to have been adjusted much, if at all, given they were only launched in the past few years.
You’ll notice that the champ’s classic skin and some of her newer looks haven’t changed as drastically as the older ones, like the Arctic Warfare, Sheriff, Officer, and Safari styles, which have been quite significantly updated to fit in with the more modern look of League’s newer champion skins.
“An ASU is a visual refresh that allows us to bring a champion closer to modern expectations (or sometimes better match their representation in other areas of our IP),” Riot explained in the latest roadmap, for context. “As such, these updates won’t heavily reimagine a champion’s lore or have any changes to their gameplay, which you’d normally see with a full VGU. With ASUs, we can fix certain elements of older champions that you’ve given us feedback on over the years – like broken necks and wrists, outdated animations, gameplay clarity improvements, outdated outfits and VO, etc. Also, ASUs are in addition to full VGUs, which the Champion Team will continue doing as usual.”
The Caitlyn ASU is due to hit the PBE sometime soon. For now, check out our League of Legends patch 11.22 notes to see what’s coming up for Riot’s MOBA next.