Discover Naafiri, the newest addition to the League of Legends champion roster. A stark departure from the humanoid norm, Naafiri is a canine assassin, representing a unique blend of easy-to-master gameplay and distinctive creature features. Designed with a pack mentality in mind, she presents an unusual gameplay challenge backed by a compelling narrative. Dive into the meticulous creation process and understand the thought behind every element of her being – from narrative to visuals and sound design.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The Creation Process Of A Champion
With the Darkin Doggo, the LoL team sought to fill a particular gameplay gap. Not long ago, they reviewed their entire roster and classified every champ by role, class, and difficulty. They did this intending to identify potential opportunities for players. They ultimately filled two significant gaps: K’Sante, a higher-skill tank, and Naafiri, a reasonably straightforward assassin suitable for beginners.
Bel’Veth, who sits on the border between human and monster, was the last creature champion released by Riot. Even though LoL has a wide variety of monsters, the development team wanted to bring a non-humanoid with more distinguishable creature traits. And following some brainstorming sessions, the group concluded that LoL needed a genuine canine representation. Although Nasus and Warwick are close, they resemble humans more than dogs.
Gamers ought to feel powerful when playing an assassin, and when an assassin shares the Rift with them, enemies must feel nervous and frightened. Being pursued by an aggressive stray dog accomplishes this really well.
Everybody who's had a bad experience with a dog knows that if you run, it's probably just gonna make things worse"..."Running makes the dog more excited. They match your energy. We wanted to create a champion who sort of called back on that experience. A dog who wants things to run. When Naafiri sees things run her bestial instincts take over.
However, Naafiri is pursuing you with multiple dogs. She travels with a pack that collaborates on hunting while surviving in the inhospitable Shuriman desert. A pack that now has a legendary God-Warrior Darkin in their hive mind.
I remember chatting with some folks when somebody said something that really stuck out to me"… "It's not one dog that's scary. You're not scared of one coyote. It's the pack. It's the fact that whenever your back is turned, another one is moving toward you. And so we started exploring stuff based on that.
Naafiri’s spirit, like every other Darkin, is connected to a weapon. This is an old dagger hidden and abandoned in a desert crypt. Once someone stole it from its resting place, Naafiri imagined she’d found her freedom. If the robber touched the dagger, they would expose themselves to the Darkin magic. But the robber was well aware of what he was holding. To prevent himself from turning into Naafiri’s new physical vessel, he took great caution not to touch the blade or its handle.
Interestingly, his unwillingness to touch the blade was his undoing. A troop of famished sand hounds pursued the man as he returned from the crypt over the Shuriman dune sea. They ripped him, his mount, and everything he owned to rags—and the blade acquired a new owner.
When people tend to think of canines/lupines—dogs and wolves, mostly—they think of the old idea that those sorts of packs have an alpha" ... "We didn't want to focus on the idea of an alpha. We really wanted to focus on the symbiotic nature of the pack.
Naafiri distinguishes herself from her Darkin counterparts in Runeterra. Initially, she loathes the concept of her spirit being trapped amid a pack of dogs. But she rapidly realized that the bond they have is what allows them to live and grow in the roughest of environments. She was sure that the Darkin could gain insight into her new group.
It's almost like evil enlightenment or letting go of your idea of self. But Naafiri is doing it for bad reasons"..."She wants the Darkin to become the dominant lifeform in Runeterra again. Abolishing the ego for evil is a means of getting there.
One Pack - One Mass Mind
The Game Design team had to ensure they maintained Naafiri’s uncomplicated gameplay. That’s why her arsenal is both highly effective and easily accessible. She must depend mainly on her packmates to assist her in obtaining kills. As a result, her pack required a sophisticated new AI.
Making sure the other hounds behave like you would expect a pack of dogs to behave was critical"..."We didn't want them to feel like mindless minions like Yorick's ghouls or Bel'Veth's summons. We wanted them to feel like your packmates who are helping you out, and like they matter throughout the entire game.
Naafiri is intended to be easy to play but accomplishing that prove itself more difficult than expected. So the Design Team created a draft doc for Naafiri’s gameplay requirements and asked the software engineering team for assistance. Naafiri required technical approaches to address an unusual array of challenges while remaining within the current game code and meeting the minimum-spec standards that make LoL so appealing to an enormously diverse community.
From Stephen's document, we looked for similar features in other games and read some white papers on how herd-movement behavior is done in other genres"..."We knew the packmates needed to path correctly, respond to attack commands quickly, stay at the appropriate range, attack the correct target, and of course, stay out of the way of an assassin's gameplay patterns.
So, he and the technical team designed completely new tech for Naafiri and her pack that is sturdy and pliable enough to accommodate future gameplay modifications.
The main design difficulty was to bring the feeling of having an RTS-like swarm at your disposal into League, while also having this be a simple champion to play"…"With the new tech, we landed on something between Age of Empires-like formations to easily control Naafiri's positions in the pack, and the quick-to-action movement mechanics in Starcraft II.
The Canine Features
Although the concept of a pack of dogs presented a fascinating sketch, it was also challenging. The art team was eager to embark on a different creature champion shortly after developing so many beautiful humans—Qiyana, Zeri, Sett, Kayle’s rework, and Evelynn’s rework are some of them.
We picked a canine because that's a very clear creature fantasy"..."A lot of people own dogs, gamers and non-gamers alike. But we had to explore different canine archetypes and different breeds.
Lonewingy and their team took inspiration from different canine figures in pop culture and the gaming world in general, some of their models were Okami dog warriors and the Great Grey Wolf, Sif. They first needed to figure out what section of Runeterra this canin monster would inhabit. They imagined a Noxus-inspired Drakehound carrying a blade, a Freljord-inspired Cerberus-inspired Watcher pup, and a Targonian Retriever featuring sun and moon shapes. They eventually became fixated on one of Lonewingy’s concepts—a dog-like demon that its not-so-cute children escorted.
That's when it clicked and the team asked me to lean into this idea, but to go more dog-like and less demon-creature. So I started exploring some ideas for a Darkin pack from Shurima since Darkin were originally part of the Ascended.
As Lonewingy developed the design, Naafiri, and her group came to resemble a Darkin that had transformed into a dog. After that, they added a few pointed references to the dagger to her form. She even sketched what a Shuriman dune dog might look like without their Darkin spirit.
I actually took a lot of inspiration from African wild dogs,"..."They sort of embodied what I imagine dune hounds to look like. And I also thought it was interesting how they use ear signals to communicate with each other and stay on-track with the pack.
But Lonewingy was well aware that all Darkin has a past. Naafiri had a previous life, a previous form. So Lonewingy gave Naafiri an earring as a modest homage to her old life. It was formerly an ornament fastened to the handle of Naafiri’s dagger by its prior owner, and it’s the only surviving memento of Naafiri’s previous form.
The Howl Of The Pack
Oh boy. Naafiri was a complex champ to figure out,"… "From the outset, being multiple dogs pretty much required multiple voices. From a VO perspective, that's a really unique approach. We knew we wanted to create a raw and animalistic sound without relying too heavily on digital effects or processing. This meant creating the effect the old school way—by having the actor record multiple layers of the same line with different vocal tones and performances live in the studio. Big shout out to our VO designer, Austin "Riot Puma Pet" Mullen, for coming up with this idea in the first place.
Riot Puma Pet considered two major design components when investigating the audio design of a champ’s voice: the physical and emotive aspects. He and the VO crew were tasked with finding Naafiri’s multiple dog voices and the inner Darkin spirit that contributed to the pack’s hive mind.
I truly believe Naafiri wouldn't be who she is without her (Naafiri's actor, Morla Gorrondona)"… "She spent extensive time with us just trying out different voices and performance ideas. The sessions with her were really wonderful playgrounds of monster sounds and explorations.
And if you listen closely, you’ll notice that Naafiri’s VO contains more than merely monster noises. Each vocal line was meticulously crafted with an additional human reading conveying Naafiri’s leadership in her group.
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