Fans expressed their displeasure with the event’s narrative, stating that Sentinels of Light is yet another “wasted opportunity” by Riot Games, in which they ruined one of the League universe’s most anticipated storylines.
The Sentinels of Light narrative event in League of Legends was the widely anticipated follow-up to last year’s Spirit Blossom event, with Riot Games taking a significant step forward in lore development with the introduction of the Ruination.
In early 2021, Riot announced the Ruination as the League’s main event for most of the year. The Ruination stood out as one of the first major leaps in lore progression since the Burning Tides event in 2015. From champion releases to game modes and map overhauls, the Ruination stood out as one of the first major leaps in lore progression since the dive into Bilgewater with the Burning Tides event in 2015. The Ruined King, Viego, who has long been a fixture of countless champions’ lore as a vital nemesis to all of Runeterra, was also finally met by players.
We knew a clash between the Sentinels of Light—specifically Senna and Lucian—and Viego was on the horizon from the opening cinematic of the year. The appropriately called Sentinels of Light event brought this battle into the hands of players, recording Senna and Lucian’s attempt to foil Viego’s intentions and save all of Runeterra from impending Ruination.
Players were introduced to different Sentinel versions of some of League’s most iconic champions—Vayne, Irelia, Riven, Diana, Pyke, Olaf, Graves, and Rengar—as well as new champions Gwen and Akshan joining the heroes in their battle. Viego’s army, on the other hand, was made up of formidable champions that had fallen to the Ruined King’s power: Karma, Pantheon, Draven, Shyvana, Miss Fortune, and the future champion, Vex. Riot, a battle between the forces of good and evil, set the stage for one of the most fascinating occurrences to ever take place in Runeterra.
However, the way the event was managed did nothing to give gamers the joy of seeing years of League mythology come together. What was supposed to be a celebration of 11 years of world-building rapidly became the subject of disputes and complaints from a fan group that has made this world their home. Riot has done more harm than good with the Sentinels of Light event, with sluggish plot advancement, numerous problems, and the convolution of existing League lore—marking a significant step back from what was brilliant just a short year ago.
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Grinding games to progress isn’t a good way.
The “gimmick” of the Sentinels of Light event featured players recruiting other champions from all around Runeterra to battle against the Ruination, which required playing many games to gather points to advance the plot. And we mean a lot of them.
Players got access to a bonus connected with the champion with each Sentinel recruited, which rewarded them extra advancement points if they accomplished those bonuses in their games. However, only Lucian and Senna were available to give benefits as players progressed through Demacia, the first area that players could access—and they weren’t particularly big.
Even if players successfully obtained all of these rewards in their games, it would take tens of games to move through Demacia. Because players only recruited one Sentinel (with the exception of Demacia, when players recruited both Gwen and Vayne), bonuses to advancement points did not accumulate quickly enough, requiring players to play a large number of games—and frequently not satisfying the bonus criteria at all.
A wasted opportunity for champions in Shadow Isles.
By no means is the Shadow Isles a new location in League lore. Various champions from the gloomy area once known as the Blessed Isles have been revealed over the years, with Viego being the most recent. Champions have made significant contributions to the tale of the Shadow Isles since the location’s inception, even mentioning the Ruination and their roles within it.
Instead of being the “Shepherd of Souls,” this Yorick was only a placeholder champion whose narrative will be retconned. The blessed water in the vial around his neck was no longer restricted to his use exclusively. Despite his established legend that he only has enough drops to defend himself, Yorick gave each Sentinel of Light a drop of the extinct water to shield them from the Mist.
To add to Yorick’s obviously defeated shell of a character, the Maiden of the Mist’s origins was modified to make her a fetter of the puzzle that was Isolde’s soul—just like Senna and Gwen, all for the plot’s benefit. Yorick was never heard from again. A champion so entwined with the Ruination’s very existence had been almost totally erased from its tale, leaving us with the body of a shepherd forgotten by his creators.
However, Yorick was not the only champion that was excluded from the Shadow Isles section of the event. Champions such as Kalista, Hecarim, Karthus, and Maokai, among many others whose lore is inextricably linked to the events of the Ruination, were nowhere to be seen. Viego and a tiny edgy yordle led Viego’s army into combat, not Hecarim. Maokai and Kalista were not out looking for revenge on the source of the Ruination; in fact, they were nowhere to be found.
Uhmm… Why is Vex even here?
Vex, League’s next champion who has long been touted as a mid lane mage, is the name of that yordle. Since Kled in 2016, there have been no new yordles added to the game. So when Riot revealed that a new yordle with direct links to the Ruination would be joining the battlefield, enthusiasm skyrocketed. But instead, we got one of the worst sections of the Sentinels of Light event.
Vex’s gimmick is her fixation with melancholy, perceiving the world for what it is and refusing to accept any happiness. She commands a massive shadow to do her bidding (and apparently opens portals to alternate dimensions). Aside from that, her character is extremely one-dimensional. Riot had this character in its pocket who it had long hinted to be a part of the Ruination, but had no clue how to fit her into the story—so it paired her alongside Viego, believing that two adversaries wanting a bleak future would work well together. They, however, did not.
Viego and Vex’s collaboration was a bad storyline. These individuals had quite different ultimate goals, and one of them didn’t even have any specific strategies to achieve that aim. Seeing these characters fight in their ideas made Vex appear even more immature on top of her dry, melancholy humor, portraying her as some edgy teenager stereotype while never clarifying what she was receiving out of her connection with Viego.
Where are the other Sentinels?
The Sentinels of Light event began and concluded with two cinematics, one giving a preview of what players may anticipate in the event and the other showcasing an animated depiction of the climactic battle against Viego. While the opening cinematic gave a climax teaser to excite fans about the event and the debut of the newest Sentinel of Light, Akshan, the closing cinematic was a big smack in the face to those who spent their time into the Ruination lore.
The faces we recruited from all across Runeterra have vanished. Instead, Riot retconned the whole event, making Vayne and Graves the only recruited Sentinels of Light—though there are no specifics on whether they were just the only ones to follow Senna, Lucian, and Gwen into the climactic confrontation with Viego. The ending was the same, but the group of over ten Sentinels of Light had been reduced to only a handful, with some of the more powerful allies being left out in favor of the more human-like, mediocre ones who lacked those superhuman characteristics. And, of course, we must not overlook Akshan.
Where was Akshan this entire time, despite being such an essential element in the end of the Ruination and the bane of Viego? Not only was he freed with only two weeks till the event, but his participation in the tale depicted him as little more than a bumbling amateur with only one objective in mind: resurrecting his master, Shadya. Though most of the event’s Shurima storyline is unremarkable, Akshan’s character growth shines in his understanding that the Absolver cannot bring his master back from the grave. But it’s unclear if this implies he didn’t kill her killer or that she can’t be revived.
Then he vanished. The League’s newest champion, the one who was supposed to put the fight to a close, suddenly vanished. Because of Lucian’s unusual decision to send the player to Shurima in the middle of the night, Akshan and his Absolver became nothing more than name drops for the other characters, most of whom didn’t even know he existed. Fitting his pattern, the Rogue Sentinel reappeared at the end as the story’s hero, but in such an unsatisfactory fashion that the effort that players had done recruiting Sentinels from all around Runeterra was made completely meaningless.
We were never properly compensated for all of our efforts. Instead, everything we accomplished was quickly retconned in front of our eyes, with the emphasis on the wonderful love between Senna and Lucian being taken away. Viego’s narrative ended, but the difficult path to get there yielded little rewards for the gamers who took their time uniting the corners of Runeterra to battle the Ruination.
We leave knowing nothing about the future of League mythology and little about what precisely The Ruined King game will cover now that we’ve traveled the Ruination. But, hey, at the very least, we now have a few icons and emotes that we will never use.