Summary
Riot Gameshas announced changes to the abilities of theLeague of Legendschampion Gragas, who is an archetypal ‘drunken brawler’ character. Gragas' W ability has been called “Drunken Rage” since time immemorial, but Riot has now announced this will be changing to comply with age rating criteria “across various regions.”
The ability is now called Raucous Rage.
Andrei “Meddler” van Roon, the head of League Studio and a vice president at Riot Games, announced this change onBluesky: “For anyone wondering - We’ve made some updates to Gragas' ability names to remove (Drunken) to stay compliant with age ratings across various regions. Feel free to pour one out for him if desired, but don’t worry, he still enjoys his brews even if he’s being very slightly more discreet about it.”
If You’re Buying, I’m In
Althoughmany commenters on a Reddit threadregarding the topic suspected these changes had something to do with restrictions in the Middle East, a region wherein several countries prohibit alcohol, Meddler later clarified that these changes were related to European standards.
“Will have to follow up, I’m not sure (this just cropped up on my radar today). This is a European compliance thing, so it affects a lot of languages, which makes things more complicated. We’re also looking exactly what does and doesn’t need to change in more detail and whether changes on the PBE might be more than necessary,” Meddler wrote in aReddit commenton a different thread.
Players think this change is nonsensical, considering League of Legends features sadists, serial killers, fascist tyrants and a fair amount of sexual innuendo.
“Meanwhile, Evelynn: rend their flesh, flay them from head to toe,” writesBestPeachNA; “Drunken rage bad, public execution good,” offersSbthrowaway734. The ultimate ability of the champion Ambessa is called Public Execution; you may have seen her failing to accomplish this very thing in Arcane.
It’s strange that Riot has felt the need to update Gragas worldwide, considering League of Legends already has several examples of region-specific changes. For example, in China, blood is not allowed to be red in video games. As a result, the champions Darius and Vladimir, who are themed around bloodletting, have had the colour of the blood changed to black. This has led people to joke that Vladimir is an “ink mage” rather than a haemomancer.
Either way, I’ll be pouring one out for Gragas, who may or may not be drunk on an undefined substance. Pass the bee- I mean brown juice.
