Riot has released a fresh trailer for the upcoming game League of Legends competitive season, and the developer is once again collaborating with Fortiche. New trailer “Welcome to Noxus,” features an entire cast of Noxian heroes scheming and fighting – including Mel, a member of the Piltover council, who travels to the Bastion of Immortality in search of answers.
“Welcome to Noxus” is, in some ways, exactly what you’d expect from a preseason movie. There are some cool battles between the characters, such as Katarina and Elise fighting at a fancy ball in Noxus, while Trundle and Darius have a bare-knuckle brawl in the icy region of the Freljord. But there’s a surprising amount of story going on here, and the film ends with the Black Rose leaders planning their next steps.
Another season League of Legendswhich begins on January 9, will bring a Noxus-inspired season to the map, changing the terrain and towers to fit the fighting nation’s themes. There’s also a new skin line, the Mask of the Black Rose, which sees a handful of heroes take part in a fancy dance party hosted by the Black Rose. Welcome to Noxus shows us fragments of this party, which is brutally crashed by Katarina. Katarina is an assassin loyal to Swain, the current leader of Noxus, so it looks like there’s still plenty of fighting going on among Noxian power players.
Interestingly, at the end of the film we see LeBlanc and Vladimir. Unfortunately, they do not match their appearance in the game, but they are still recognizable as characters. This could be a teaser of a future visual update for these heroes. It also seems to confirm that LeBlanc is the mysterious magician who came face to face with Mel in Season 2 Secret. In fact, the new season, The Mask of the Black Rose, and LeBlanc’s conversation with Vladimir seem to be a direct continuation of the end of the series. Secret Season 2. This suggests that Secret is definitely head canon, which is an interesting discovery.
If you want to know more about Black Rose, League of Legends knowledge and how Secret ties into all of this, the above video by Necrit is a solid and deep dive into the subject from a long-time curator of the game’s complex canon.
We’ll need to see more of Noxus and how this cinematic fight plays out throughout the first season. Noxus has tons of narrative potential: Mordekaiser’s ticking time bomb hidden in the Bastion of Immortality, Swain’s deal with a cunning demon named Raum, Thresh stealing souls from the hapless staff of a Noxian bar, and the ongoing conflict led by Darius to the Freljord.
New season League of Legends will be released on January 9 at 12:00 PST/3:00 PM EST.
