For this year’s big reveal, Riot Games rolled out a champion reveal for Pingu, the Guide. The fake but insanely overpowered penguin mascot of Teamfight Tactics comes equipped with an iceberg that automatically kills enemies, a teleport ability and a crowd control that would only make sense one day a year. Pingu was teased on the League of Legends subreddit a few days prior, with community mods reveling in how well they managed to fool their hungry fan base.
Normally April Fools’ Day is full of pranks and weird announcements from entertainment companies attempting to become the most talked-about story on the web. With coronavirus completely reshaping our everyday lives and the massive spread of misinformation tied to the online conversation, the 2020 pranks have been a lot tamer than usual.
Riot Games has a long history of April Fools’ Day-related gags and goofs, dating back to 2010. In the last decade, we were introduced to Urf the Manatee, a lovable aquatic mammal who just wanted to help Runeterra be a better place. That was true until the bad wolf Warwick decided to get hungry and chomp Urf until he was nothing more than skin. The Urf Warwick skin was only available in that event for many years until Riot Games decided to bring the cosmetic out of the vault when the Hextech Crafting system was implemented.
Urf was the mascot for League’s April Fools’ content up until 2016, when the fake champion was fazed out. The manatee’s legacy lives on in Ultra Rapid Fire mode, known colloquially as URF, but his flippers have lost their grasp on the gag. It feels like Pingu has become the new “fake” mascot of League of Legends, replacing the joyous Urf. On one hand, it makes sense remove a running gag that players would only recognize if they were around a decade ago.That being said, Urf remains a key part of League’s marketing, and he even has figures and plushies created in his likeness.
Urf is better than Pingu in every way, so here’s hoping that this joke is just a mindless fad born out of developer boredom.
