Riot dev responds to backlash over Akali’s voice line changes

Author

Admin

Date

Jul, 16.2022

NeoLexical, product manager of Riot Games responded to the controversy emerged by the changes to League of Legends legacy champion Akali over the past few days.

The voice actress replaced all of the champion’s English voice lines. She produced the lines for Akali’s Legendary Star Guardian skin. While the changes haven’t hit the live servers yet, they are available on the Public Beta Environment (PBE).

The new vocal fonts have a completely new style, delivering a new sense of personality to the killer which was released in 2010. While the previous lines were voiced by Krizia Bajos, the new lines are delivered by Ashly Burch.

As per Riot’s statement, some players have criticized the changes and they claimed that the new voice doesn’t suit the champion.
“We want Akali to stand in the middle of Zed and Shen as Chaotic Good. The new VO make Akali more heroic, but potentially lost some of the chaotic/ anti-hero elements,” Neolexical explained in a recent Reddit thread. 

The developer also said they haven’t dismissed the idea of reverting the voice line changes but will need more time to “Let it soak to get more feedbacks from both sides” because “it’s very common to reject change.”

What decision Riot will make for the champion is still unclear at this early stage.