League of Legends skins will be taking a decidedly scary turn in the next patch with the release of Fright Night – a skin line that takes more than a few pointers from movies like The Nightmare Before Christmas and Beetlejuice. The MOBA will, on occasion, celebrate a certain time of year or occasion, with a set of spooky skins to be released as the night draws ever closer…
Annie, Trundle, Draven, Urgot, and Renata Glasc are all on the receiving end of a Halloween makeover this time around; the majority of the release isn’t overtly horror-themed but appears to be centered around the more whimsical side of the scariest time of year. Burton-esque, if you will.
Fright Night Urgot
Urgot’s visual twist shares more than a few similarities with Oogie Boogie, the animated burlap sack filled to the brim with creepy crawlies. Nothing is quite as terrifying as a bug-filled piece of cloth with crab legs scuttling towards you on the Rift – that’s even before you’ve been harpooned and dragged to your inevitable demise.
Fright Night Annie
With Victorian-style clothing and a penchant for voodoo dolls, Annie is channeling her inner Wednesday Adams with this skin. Tibbers, the creepy protector, lurks in the background, knitting the Dark Child a new victim. Just real creepy stuff, Riot. Real creepy stuff.
Fright Night Draven
More of your traditional horror tropes are on offer here – hockey masks and chainsaws are classic and fit Draven perfectly. At first, I figured it was a straight-up Jason Voorhees homage, but then I remembered the time Homer woke Bart up to show him his new chainsaw and figured it had to be that.
Fright Night Nautilus and Renata Glasc
Like Morticia and Gomez, dancing away in the darkness, surrounded by cobwebs and other, weird monstrosities. Naut appears to be some kind of… large candle? Like a twisted Lumiere. Renata dons a pinstripe suit, with shades of Beetlejuice, and her now bat-winged drone watches over Annie, playing in the background.
Fright Night Trundle
The Wolfman meets the Axeman with Trundle’s fright night skin. Eating garbage under a full moon, he patrols the garden of a (no doubt) haunted house. I believe a little hut pops up whenever he uses his E ability, too, which is lovely.
The overall fan reception of the Fright Night skin line has been positive, with people commenting on how original these designs are compared to some of the previous offerings: “They look like they belong in a completely different game, in a good way. It’s not often we get these huge departures from League’s base art style, and I really wish we did more often.”
All of these new skins are now on the PBE, with the release most likely to come with patch 12.18. For the current changes, check out League of Legends patch 12.17 and the Zenith Games skin release. I love the theme of these skins, they draw on beloved pop culture references, rather than just dressing a champion in purple, throwing a witch’s hat on them, and calling it a day.