Viktor mains aren’t particularly happy with his rework’s visual updates to the character, feeling as if they changed too much about his visual identity and too little about his core gameplay.
The direction in which Arcane took his character is outright incompatible with what he used to be in League of Legends. And, if we’re being honest, his old lore was a bit all over the place.
Sometimes, he was an anti-hero, someone who used his penchant for engineering for a good cause. Other times, he was a brutal tormentor with no regard for human life. It was really, really all over the place.
It’s hard to argue against the goal of making his lore a bit more clearly defined, though the way Riot has done it in regards to erasing the old Viktor in exchange for the Arcane one was bound to be contentious. His lore being out of sorts before didn’t keep people from getting attached to the parts about him they liked.
Players are critical of his old lore being erased entirely, but they also feel as if not enough has changed about his gameplay to justify a full rework either. Most of the people who main this champion are unhappy, and they’re calling for a glorious revert-lution.
Viktor rework skins side-by-side comparison
For context, here’s each of his skins side-by-side to compare his original models with the new ones to allow you to draw your own conclusions about which you prefer.
Base Viktor
Full Machine Viktor
Prototype Viktor
Creator Viktor
Deathsworn Viktor
PsyOps Viktor
High Noon Viktor
All side-by-sides sourced from Skin Spotlights
Viktor mains revolt against his rework
On the PBE subreddit, the post asking for feedback on Viktor’s rework has no upvotes and over 2000 comments. Clearly people aren’t happy about the way things have gone.
“Honest criticism: Not changing anything on his kit was a terrible decision. His E and maybe Q to some extend are fine but especially his W is completely outdated and easily one of the worst abilities in this game imo. I would at least just give him a completely different W,” one Redditor claimed.
“The redesigned skins do not look good. Missing/lacking vfx and odd redesign choices. I really don’t like the Deathsworn hood and mask, and High Noon looks like its missing details,” said another.
“You seem to have fundamentally changed the champions identity to something infinitely more generic, while also failing to address the issues people actually had with the champion. Viktor’ss W has been bugged for years now, and you guys do nothing,” one irritated Viktor main said.
“Then you come in, and just kinda…. erase my main. I just don’t get it.”
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In other words, people think they’ve changed too much about the way he looks to the point where he doesn’t feel like Viktor any more, but also changed too little about his actual kit to make it feel like a true rework.
“By trying to make 2 opposite communities happy (Viktor Mains and Arcane Fans) you guys managed to disappoint both. You should’ve committed to please his mains OR the arcane fans, now we have a product that doesn’t really appeal to any community, his gameplay in nothing remembers his powers in Arcane. His visual displeases the Viktor’s mains that already didn’t like his W, Q and R,” one Redditor explained.
“You guys managed to improve nothing and enrage old and new Viktor fans, congratulations.”
And, according to the official Arcane art book, Viktor’s implementation was based more on Fortiche’s vision than Riot’s, with their goal being to preserve the animation studio’s take on the character in bringing him into LoL.
This is a decision mains for the character haven’t taken well, feeling as if League of Legends is losing something in Viktor’s departure, a void that the new take on this character doesn’t fill.
Additionally, some keen-eyed players have noticed that the new human version of Viktor bears a striking resemblance to Hwei’s art.
And that isn’t just because of them having a similar look or stature, the art for Viktor’s Savior skin could practically be a draw over with how similar their facial structures are.
LoL lorekeeper TBSkyen agreed with many of the Viktor mains who aren’t a fan of the rework. “There’s no engineer here, there’s no, ‘I’m a mechanical scientist using my robot arm to laser blast with science beam!’ or whatever. There’s none of that, this is a f**king wizard doing wizard sh*t.”
Big Viktor mains in the community like Hancock have been vocal about how they feel they’re losing their character, that this rework “doesn’t do justice to his original lore or Arcane adaptation” due to him keeping his old abilities for the most part and having them stuck on someone who, for all intents and purposes, is a new person.
He and many other Viktor mains are calling for a revert-lution.