Tweet
League Of Legends Dev Admits Kai'Sa Is "Unnecessarily Sexualized"
League of Legends developer Riot Games has admitted that one of the popular game's characters was "unnecessarily sexualized." The character Kai'Sa's neckline "didn't land well with players," Riot admitted in a blog post this week, adding that it hopes to do better and be more conscious of its design choices in the future.
"It made her look unnecessarily sexualized, even if it that wasn't the intention," the studio explained.
Kai'Sa is a human who survived the Void by combining herself with a Void creature, so Riot said it was important to make sure she still looked like a human. She didn't always have a deep neckline; this was introduced later in the design process. Here's what Riot said:
"Early on, Kai'Sa didn't have a deep neckline. When we got her in game, we realized her dark hair combined with the suit made her look more 'Void creature or corrupted human' than 'normal person wearing a Void-suit,' particularly because the human skin showing on her face was small onscreen and difficult to read from the in-game camera.
"Our artists tried a few things to try and address this, and the one that worked well was redesigning her neckline so you could see her human skin more clearly when her mask was off. With this change, more playtesters interpreted Kai'Sa as being a human wearing a suit rather than a human who was corrupted."
In hindsight, Riot acknowledged that it should have spent more time thinking about how to best approach Kai'Sa's design. But instead of going back and changing her look now, Riot said it is instead going to try to be better in the future. "Even though we had good intentions, we could've done better, and in the future, we will be even more conscious of these decisions."
More...
"It made her look unnecessarily sexualized, even if it that wasn't the intention," the studio explained.
Kai'Sa is a human who survived the Void by combining herself with a Void creature, so Riot said it was important to make sure she still looked like a human. She didn't always have a deep neckline; this was introduced later in the design process. Here's what Riot said:"Early on, Kai'Sa didn't have a deep neckline. When we got her in game, we realized her dark hair combined with the suit made her look more 'Void creature or corrupted human' than 'normal person wearing a Void-suit,' particularly because the human skin showing on her face was small onscreen and difficult to read from the in-game camera.
"Our artists tried a few things to try and address this, and the one that worked well was redesigning her neckline so you could see her human skin more clearly when her mask was off. With this change, more playtesters interpreted Kai'Sa as being a human wearing a suit rather than a human who was corrupted."
In hindsight, Riot acknowledged that it should have spent more time thinking about how to best approach Kai'Sa's design. But instead of going back and changing her look now, Riot said it is instead going to try to be better in the future. "Even though we had good intentions, we could've done better, and in the future, we will be even more conscious of these decisions."
More...