Why Zoe Is so Different from Other League of Legends Champions

League of Legends' newest champion is quite different from the rest of the roster with a cartoonish, colorful personality, and a Riot games producer recently expanded on why they chose this route for Zoe while discussing her place among other champions.

The closest champions to Zoe's theme and identity would likely be somewhere along the spectrum of Lulu, Lux, and Annie given her kid-like appearance and bubbly personality. Zoe's much older than she appears though, and Riot Reav3 said that she's certainly a change from prior champions.

"Zoe is definitely stands out in our cast," Reav3 explained. "I think there are two reasons for this. One is her head and eye proportions, and the other is her extremely cartoony animations. For the head we settled on the final proportions in order to make Zoe look more like a child."

Reav3 added that they did try changing the proportions of her head, but she ended up looking more like other champions and less like the trickster child theme that they were going for.

"When we tried normal size head proportions, many people were reading her as closer to Jinx/Lux in age rather than a kid," he continued. "We ended up going with similar proportions to Annie as that made her read as a child much clearer."

Referencing the "Trickster Archetype" to highlight into some of the playful characteristics of Zoe, Reav3 explained that they tried pushing the champ's theme pretty far with Zoe even having a roller coaster at one point.

"We wanted Zoe to on the surface appear human, but really behind the surface is a god motivated by its own self-amusement," Reav3 continued. "We wanted her to feel like she was breaking and bending the rules of Runeterra — and even our own cast. Early on we even tried crazier things; at one point when Zoe used her R she came out of the portal on a roller coaster, which we ended up feeling pushed things a bit too far. In the end, though, we wanted her overall feeling, from VO, gameplay, and art, to push, bend, and break the boundaries of the game, like a true Trickster God should."

Some players might avoid Zoe – or just ban her – based on her theme and abilities when she's available, but look out for her trickster playstyle when she's released soon.