League of Legends: Five things about Star Guardians 2022 we're hyped about
The biggest ingame event for the League of Legends (LoL) franchise for the year is here!
The Star Guardian 2022 event has kicked off and will run from 14 July to 20 August across three titles: LoL, League of Legends: Wild Rift, and Legends of Runeterra (LoR).
Riot will also contribute to the Riot Games Social Impact Fund throughout the event. From 14 to 15 July, Riot will donate 20% of the revenue from the Star Guardian Event Pass to the charity.
Afterwards, Riot will donate all earnings related to Star Guardian Taliyah from 28 July to 29 August. Taliyah's skin, border set, Chroma Bundle, and All-Star Bundle are all included in this bundle.
I could barely contain the hype I was feeling as I wrote this. The Star Guardians were inspired by the Mahō Shōjo (Magical Girls) genre, like Sailor Moon. First released in 2016, Star Guardians story followed an alternate LoL universe of school girls who protected the first star.
This event is huge and Riot is going all out, as it’s not just new Star Guardian skins that everyone is treated to!
Here are five things we’re hyped about for Star Guardians this year:
The Artwork and the Music
Everything about the Star Guardians is done beautifully. All the promotional and in-game artwork in the visual novels, the comics, the music, and the music videos are all high-quality and really good to look at.
On top of that, the theme song, Everything Goes On, by Porter Robinson, is a light, catchy tune that feels like an opening song from a Makoto Shinkai anime classic (Your Name, Weathering with You).
And the music video features high-quality animation that makes you wish the Star Guardians were an actual anime series. (Seriously though, we’re still hoping that happens.)
There’s also an entire album of some pretty chill music you can listen to called Sessions: Star Guardian Taliyah.
New Star Guardians
This is probably the biggest lineup of Star Guardians released ever.
This year, we get to see Kai’Sa, Akali, Sona, Taliyah, Quinn, Rell, Ekko, and even the newest champion, Nilah, in LoL against Star Nemesis Fiddlesticks. Syndra is also lined up as a Star Guardian, but her character seems pretty mysterious now.
Meanwhile, in Wild Rift, Senna, Seraphine, and Orianna also join the Cosmic battle along with Ahri and Miss Fortune.
The story seems to focus on Xayah, who is looking for Rakan (both were already Star Guardians before this year).
New Story
Speaking of the new story, if there’s something that Riot is really good at, it’s their lore.
With everyone in Runeterra reeling from the Ruination and the incoming threat of the Void Empress, Bel’Veth, the Star Guardians feel like a breath of fresh air — A story about a cast of high school-aged girls and boys fighting a great evil in an alternate universe.
This is the fourth iteration of the Star Guardians, and the story seems to get more and more interesting each time.
To introduce Kai’sa and Akali into the universe, Riot released a fourteen-chapter backstory on how these two friends got involved with the Star Guardians.
Then in Wild Rift, players will go through the journey of Xayah searching for Rakan after Zoe’s defeat. But she can’t do this alone; the rest of the Star Guardians are by her side.
Both stories will be revealed in weekly visual novels for LoL and Wild Rift.
In-game events and mini-games
LoL and Wild Rift both have in-game events and mini-games lined up throughout the ten-week celebration.
In Wild Rift, you can take a look at the Star Map to see what’s happening and what’s next. You can also get the chance to take three Star Guardians on their journey to defeat the Forces of Chaos by playing matches in the game. There’s also a mini-game where you get to level up your Star Guardian’s familiars too.
You can check out all the in-game events and mini-games for Wild Rift here.
In LoL, you also have your mini-game, which is divided into different acts. A new act is opened weekly, and you can grind your way through missions to gain emotes, baubles, icons, and more.
You also get rewards for playing a LoL champion who’s part of the Star Guardian universe. Each act reveals more of the story to you, too. Check here for all the in-game events and mini-games for LoL.
A word of warning, though: While there are a lot of rewards for the Star Guardian event, the missions are pretty grindy, so you may need to allocate some time to finish these. I thought Riot learned from the Ruination event? We’ll see how much content is locked behind these missions.
The Star Guardians are arriving at Legends of Runeterra too! There are only a few lovely and intriguing artworks on the LoR Star Guardian page, but players can gain access to the event pass starting 20 July.
New Skins, naturally
Of course, along with the new Star Guardians are new skins and all the special effects and animations!
Some players were disappointed that some skins, especially Orianna, Senna, Xayah, Rakan, and Redeemed Xayah and Rakan, are exclusive to Wild Rift.
But who knows? Maybe they’ll eventually release these in LoL! (and Kai’sa and Akali to Wild Rift). An expansion pack and some Star Guardian skins are also lined up for Legends of Runeterra.
Here are the list of Star Guardian skins to be released this year in League of Legends:
Patch 12.13
Star Guardian Ekko
Prestige Star Guardian Ekko
Star Guardian Kai’Sa
Star Guardian Nilah
Star Guardian Sona
Star Nemesis Fiddlesticks
Patch 12.14
Star Guardian Akali
Star Guardian Quinn
Star Guardian Rell
Star Guardian Taliyah
Prestige Star Guardian Syndra
Here are the Star Guardian Skins released for Wild Rift (Patch 3.3):
Star Guardian Ahri
Star Guardian Miss Fortune
Star Guardian Rakan
Star Guardian Xayah
Redeemed Star Guardian Rakan*
Redeemed Star Guardian Xayah*
Star Guardian Senna*
Star Guardian Seraphine*
Star Guardian Orianna*
* Wild Rift exclusive
Finally, here are the Star Guardian skins to be released in Legends of Runeterra:
Forces from Beyond Expansion
Star Guardian Gwen
Star Guardian Kai’Sa
Star Guardian Jinx
Star Guardian Senna
Star Guardian Quinn
Star Guardian Taliyah
Star Guardian Lulu
Star Guardian Soraka
Anna is a freelance writer and photographer. She is a gamer who loves RPGs and platformers, and is a League of Legends geek. She's also a food enthusiast who loves a good cup of black coffee.
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