Riot has released a new teaser for the upcoming League of Legends competitive season, and the developer is once again collaborating with Fortiche. The new trailer, “Welcome to Noxus,” shows an assortment of Noxian champions scheming and battling — including Mel, the council member from Piltover, who is travelling to the Immortal Bastion in search of answers.
Welcome to Noxus is, in some ways, exactly what you might expect from a pre-season cinematic. There are some cool battles between champions, with Katarina and Elise duking it out at a fancy ball in Noxus while Trundle and Darius engage in a bare-knuckle brawl up in the icy region of the Freljord. But there’s a startling amount of story development here, and the cinematic ends with the leaders of the Black Rose scheming about their next steps.
The next season of League of Legends, which begins on Jan. 9, will bring a Noxus-themed season to the map, changing the terrain and turrets to fit the militant nation’s themes. There’s also a new skin line, the Masque of the Black Rose, which has a handful of champions attending a fancy dance ball hosted by the Black Rose. Welcome to Noxus shows us bits and piece of this party, which is rudely crashed by Katarina. Katarina is an assassin loyal to Swain, the current leader of Noxus, so it seems there’s still plenty of in-fighting amongst the Noxian power players.
Intriguingly, we get to see LeBlanc and Vladimir appear at the end of the cinematic. They don’t match their in-game appearances, unfortunately, but they’re still recognizable as characters. This may be a teaser to a future visual update for these champions. It also seems to confirm LeBlanc as the mysterious mage who confronted Mel in season 2 of Arcane. In fact, this new season, the Masque of the Black Rose, and the conversation between LeBlanc and Vladimir seem to be a direct continuation of the end of Arcane season 2. This suggests that Arcane is definitely the mainline canon, which is an interesting revelation.
If you’re interested in learning more about the Black Rose, League of Legends lore, and how Arcane ties into it all, the above video by Necrit is a solid deep dive into the topic from a long-time curator of the game’s complex canon.
We’ll have to see more of Noxus and how this cinematic struggle plays out throughout the first season. There’s plenty of narrative potential around Noxus: the ticking time bomb of Mordekaiser hidden within the Immortal Bastion, Swain’s bargain with a devious demon named Raum, Thresh’s pilfering of souls from unlucky Noxian bar staff, and the ongoing conflict led by Darius into the Freljord.
The new season of League of Legends releases on Jan. 9 at 12 p.m. PST/3 p.m. EST.
