League of Legends Announcer Packs Have Been Put on Hold

League of Legends players who’ve been waiting to hear different announcers grace their matches [...]

By Tanner Dedmon

League of Legends players who've been waiting to hear different announcers grace their matches with commentary will apparently have to wait a bit longer for that to happen now that announcer packs have been put on hold for the time being. An update shared on the matter within the latest edition of Ask Riot acknowledged the previous teaser about announcer packs and said that the plan was previously to have them released during Fall 2020. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, however, that's no longer the case, the announcer packs have been put on hold for the time being to protect all parties involved.

Riot's teaser from before left little to the imagination about what the company was hinting at. The video above talked about something Riot had planned that it couldn't wait to "announce" and for players to "hear" something about the plans later in the year, emphasis put on those words by Riot. There was nothing concrete about announcer packs said despite the tease though, until the latest Ask Riot post confirmed that the announcer packs are real and aren't releasing as planned.

"When we teased announcer packs earlier this year, we had hoped to release the first ones this fall, but we've decided to put them on hold for now," said Jonathan "Bellissimoh" Bellis, the product lead for personalization in League who first teased the announcer packs in the video. "We're facing unexpected production constraints due to COVID-19, and avoiding health risks is a top priority—we don't want to endanger the safety of external partners like VO actors."

It's a familiar story that we've seen from Riot and other companies as features and sometimes entire games have been delayed because of the coronavirus. In this case, Riot said it didn't want to endanger any voice over actors who would be brought in to record lines for the announcer packs. Common requests for announcers in League have been for champions like Draven and Gangplank among others, and getting any voice packs at all in order would mean working with numerous voice actors especially when you consider localization efforts.

Riot Bellissimoh said other aspects of League have been impacted by the coronavirus including Legendary skins and work on champions. While there's no one-size-fits-all solution to the problem, the Rioter said, solutions have been found for some of the problems, and players will be updated on the matters should anything change.

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