League of Legends Gameplay Trailer Previews Udyr's Rework, Abilities

Riot Games put out a new League of Legends trailer this week featuring Udyr, the next champion in line to receive a rework that'll overhaul both the character's in-game abilities and his overall appearance. This gameplay trailer gave us a taste of both of those by showing off the mountain man's look and some of his moves being used on other champions, but as is customary with these sorts of teasers, we don't know just yet what all his abilities do, specifically.

The gameplay trailer in question can be seen below after it was shared by Riot on Friday. It's part cinematic, part gameplay with the former showing Udyr sitting alone and meditating in what's presumably the Freljordian wilderness. The other half of the trailer consists of Udyr sprinting around Summoner's Rift with some new abilities in tow to hint at what his updated moves will consist of.

Over on Twitter where the same video was shared, League players speculated about what his moves might do as well as the Freljordian inspirations they pulled from. It's been stated in past champion insights articles from Riot that the rework looked to make Udyr more in touch with the Freljoridan aspects that defined the champion, and players are already drawing connections between the moves and the lore of the game.

At the very end of the trailer, we see what's supposed to be Udyr's Spirit Guard skin, the coveted Ultimate cosmetic that was a far cry from the champion's original design when it first released. The video didn't state it plainly that this was that skin, but it looks similar to the concept art shared back in the April Champion Roadmap whenever Riot said that work on Udyr's base form was done and that the team was focusing on his skins with an emphasis on the Spirit Guard cosmetic.

"One of the goals for Spirit Guard is to keep some of the essence of old Udyr, so to do that it will represent the time he spent training in Ionia, and will also use the same animals as pre-VGU Udyr (Tiger, Bear, Turtle, and Phoenix)," League's lead producer of champions Ryan "Reav3" Mireles said back in April. "We wanted Spirit Guard to immortalize his old animal forms, while also cranking them up to 11."

We don't yet have a release date for Udyr nor do we fully know what he's capable of, but with teasers like this already out there, expect more news to come soon enough.