Riot Games says it's working to add more diversity and body types to its lineup of women champions in League of Legends, and the result of that work will be seen soon in an upcoming character.
League of Legends producer Omar Kendall, responding to a fan request for other body types in the game's women, said at Comic-Con that Riot has been implementing "new strategies for what our champions look like." That includes body type, body shape, he said, and answering the question "how can we make [a champion] that's not like all these other guys?"
The vast majority of League of Legends' champions who are women fit the same physical mold: slim, athletic and busty. The game's male champions show a more varied range of body types.
Kendall said Riot is currently working on a champion who's "coming out soon(TM)" that will reflect that desire for more diversity — and said that "diversity" is actually a category in new champion design.
"It's something that we're paying a lot more attention to now and you'll see that soon," he said.
Game designer Brian Feeney also chimed in to say that Riot considers character silhouettes important to game design, making champions easy to identify. He added that exploring new body shapes for women will allow Riot to play more with silhouettes.
Alex M. Lehmann, senior animator at Riot, noted that the female shopkeeper in the updated Summoner's Rift map "doesn't fit the hourglass norm."
"That was a lot of fun to animate," he said. "We want to see it and we know players want to see it."