League of Legends has "killed" off a champion

"Gangplank is dead."

As part of the story surrounding the Bilgewater event that's been running for the last few weeks, Gangplank was dispatched by his long time rival Miss Fortune. Drowned, naturally. But like super heroes, MOBA characters don't stay gone long. Just ask ~~Skeleton~~ Wraith King. It's unlikely the pirate is gone for good.

Riot's statement to the community is an exaggerated wink as to what's in store:

"Champion death is unprecedented in League of Legends, and we do not take it lightly. We encourage all Gangplank fans to remain calm for a few days until we can fully assess the situation. At this time, we are not addressing refund requests for him or his skins but please know that over the next several days we’ll do our best to make things right for everyone."

As are some of Riot's replies to forum posts.

It's worth pointing out that there's already a Gangplank ghost skin in-game. More to the point, Gangplank was recently given major overhaul—incorporating a new look and feature set. Which is a lot of effort to go to if you're going to permanently remove a character.

Meanwhile, Miss Fortune is living it up—rebranding herself as Captain Fortune, and gaining a new skin more in keeping with her title.

It should be fun to see where this is going. It's always cool watching developers experiment with long-running games.

Ta, Kotaku.

Phil has been writing for PC Gamer for nearly a decade, starting out as a freelance writer covering everything from free games to MMOs. He eventually joined full-time as a news writer, before moving to the magazine to review immersive sims, RPGs and Hitman games. Now he leads PC Gamer's UK team, but still sometimes finds the time to write about his ongoing obsessions with Destiny 2, GTA Online and Apex Legends. When he's not levelling up battle passes, he's checking out the latest tactics game or dipping back into Guild Wars 2. He's largely responsible for the whole Tub Geralt thing, but still isn't sorry.