Riot has decided to partially roll back Gragas' changes, retaining the character's core settings

Earlier this month, Riot Games announced a surprising change in League of Legends: adjusting the alcohol-related description of the veteran hero Gragas. In order to meet the rating requirements of some regions, the development team decided to delete the text of this character who has been active in the game for more than 15 years. However, this decision has aroused widespread doubts in the player community, and many people believe that these changes should not be implemented in all regions, but only in specific regions.

Recently, Andrei van Roon, head of the "League of Legends" studio, posted on X that Riot has re-evaluated the relevant changes and decided to partially withdraw them.

"Hey everyone, we've reviewed the changes to Gragas's ability names and found that overall the changes can be more moderate while still staying within EU standards," said van Roon. "We do need to modify the ability descriptions, such as removing 'Drunken Arcane' and tweaking the wording of 'Swig', as well as tweak the character biography in the client. However, the ability name will remain 'Drunken Rage' and the biography on the Universe settings page will not change."

This decision is considered a reasonable compromise, which not only ensures that League of Legends is compliant with the ratings in the European market, but also preserves the core setting of Gragas to the greatest extent. After all, the gaming industry has been plagued by controversy over the issue of "censorship" over the past decade. Even if the development team explains the reasons for the changes openly and transparently, it is difficult to avoid dissatisfaction among the player community, not to mention that there are always some people with ulterior motives who take advantage of the issue.

Since joining League of Legends in 2010, Gragas has been known for his love of beer. Not only does he love drinking, he also likes to brew beer himself. Therefore, when there are rumors that the character's drinking culture setting will be "diluted" or even "erased", fans are naturally very sensitive. Fortunately, from Van Roon's statement, the development team just needs to be more cautious in the description, and the essence of Gragas has not been changed.

It should be emphasized that this adjustment to Gragas has never involved the actual gameplay. This is not a nerf or a modification of the mechanism. What players are worried about is whether the character's soul can continue.