14 DAY TRIAL // League of Legends developer Riot Games has confirmed that it's going to implement a massive update for Twitch, the Plague Rat, in order to modernize his character model and tweak some of his abilities.
League of Legends launched way back in 2009 and one of the first characters released for the popular Multiplayer Online Battle Arena title was Twitch, the plague rat.
Since then, the roster of champions has increased exponentially, giving players the ability to choose from over 100 different characters.
Unfortunately, some of the older ones have been cast aside, including Twitch.
Riot Games has now confirmed on its website that Twitch is in for a major revamp, especially since his animation rig was extremely limiting, making it hard to create new skins or updates for him.
As such, the studio went back to the drawing board to imagine a new version of Twitch that had all sorts of fresh features but retained the things that made him popular among League of Legends players.
First and foremost, the core character has been preserved, as his animations and voice over reinforce the slightly twisted personality of the loveable rodent.
"We’re adding some ground-breaking features in here by rigging the lower half of his body (imagine that!), and showcasing his character through flavorful animations that flow through his entire body, including his tail. Of course, we’ve also included a bunch of small touches we now deem standard, such as different run animations depending on movement speed, extra VO lines and a suitably odious new splash," the studio said.
Besides these changes to the actual character model for Twitch, a series of so-called Quality of Life improvements have also been made, from new sound effects to range indicators and more, so check out the list below.
- We added a sound effect and puff of poison particles to better indicate the moment when Ambush’s invisibility kicks in. This should better indicate to Twitch players when they’ve turned invisible, particularly when they’re being attacked. - We gave Expunge a range indicator, and added a particle linking Twitch with his Expunged victims. This should help players on the opposite team understand why their health just took a nosedive. - We added extra particles to Spray and Pray that show who else is being hit by Twitch’s ult. This should help both Twitch and his enemies see where his damage is going.
The new and improved Twitch will go live on the Public Beta Environment in the near future as Riot wants more feedback before he returns to the actual game.