Reaction: PROJECT Skins

 

Images from Surrender @ 20 and Skin Spotlights!

Ah, Project. You're like the cockroach of skin lines. For better or worse, you're always around. Why I remember the days when Project was just a neat skin Yasuo got one time, and now it feels like every champion is getting a Project skin ASAP before the cyberpunk aesthetic goes out of fashion. Yeah, by now the Project universe feels oversaturated with now 23 SKINS in it. And by now I've grown a bit bored of it. But at least these skins are some of the best Project skins we've gotten in a while, if nothing else simply because so many predictable and popular champions are out of the way now that they're having to get more creative with it.

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Senna is probably the most predictable of the bunch, ghostly powers, and being part of a pair with Lucian getting turned into a cybernetic sleuth type character was a shoe-in for her, but they did some neat things with her design. While she's yet another lady with not helmet on, there is of course how well her cannon translates into a huge sci-fi gun. I also like the purple trails to be there in place of her ghostly powers. Also, it's fun that the ghouls that pop out of dead units for her passive are presented like "data" for her to extract!

Varus once again proving gays cannot sit normally.

Varus on the other hand is the one I'm the least impressed by. While on a conceptual level, Varus definitely fits this Cyberpunk universe with how he has two human consciousnesses trapped in a single vessel. It's a shame he doesn't have the voiceover to reflect that, so it just ends up falling flat. Whoops! Design-wise though, he's not blowing me away or anything. The scarf is a neat addition I guess.

Robot dystopia and Sylus STILL refuses to put on a shirt.

Sylus is another one that fits conceptually but his design is.. well, neater that Varus for sure, but still not wowwing me, personally. The cybernetic chains are definitely unique, and I like that idea that he steals "Data" as his ultimate-hijacking. And true to Sylus's nature as an eyecandy champion, not only is his face out but he also have a completely bare torso for all the men-likers. I'm not a men-liker, but more power to all the men-likers.

The Prestige Edition of this skin is hilarious though, because it gives him a titty window, and it looks super silly.

Dangerously close to looking like a Leona skin

Sejuani is when we start getting into the weirdos that feel like they wouldn't fit in at first. And Sejuani here isn't too much other than turning Bristle into a robot boar, but there is something fun about the very fact Project: Sejuani exists at all. Like, when we got that first batch of Project skins after Yasuo, who would've predicted Sejuani would get one later on? Anyway, it's once again annoying she's yet another lady that gets a tinted HUD rather than a helmet that entirely covers their face, but feh. She's still cool for what she is.

The man behind the slaughter

Then we get not just one, but TWO Legendary skins this patch, one for poor ol' Renekton, who gets a mechanised crocodile man suit which looks really silly on first brush, but when it's evidently a "follow-up" to Project Warwick, it works out well enough.

He's also another non-human champion to have gotten a human iteration and-- oh, phew, it's not another twinkie pretty boy. I know these "human forms" aren't canon to Runeterra itself but it still feels like you're setting the precedent for what these characters like Renekton looked like when they were still human. To add to this concept though, this is his "resting" pose, as in out of combat. When he gets near an enemy champion, his whole helmet forms the crocodile mouth as seen in the splash art, and that's pretty dang neat. His ultimate also brings up a proper HUD complete with a timer for how long his ult lasts and a Fury meter on the side.

I, for one, accept our armored cyber-rabbit overlords.

And finally, there's Mordekaiser. While sheer model-wise he feels just a little out of place, only really fitting in cause Morde's design translates well into being turned into a robot. But turning Mordekaiser, the evil death-realm-conquering revenant, into a virus that's implanted a bit of himself into all of technology is pretty brilliant. Though I'm a little less certain on him existing in a setting that already had a villain in the Project itself, being an authoritarian police state that many are trying to rebel against to put an end to their over-encompassing rule. Feels like they're undermined a bit when this guy comes along and says he's just gonna enslave humanity himself like a more cartoonish bad guy.

That said, Morde picked up one of the coolest dang effects in the whole game, with his death realm arena ultimate teleporting him and  his opponent to the city within the Project setting itself.