LEAGUE OF LEGEND’S, NAUTILUS BURIED OFF THE AUSTRALIAN COAST

Scuba diving off the beautiful Australian coastline generally involves exotic fish, seaweed, amazing coral and maybe a shark or sea snake or two. To add to the incredible underwater landscape, there is now a giant statue of League of Legend’s champion, Nautilus, at the bottom of the Australian ocean. The idea is to create an artificial reef to encourage more aquatic life to live and grow in the area.

Last year, LoL’s Oceanic server players were given a nautical-themed challenge by Riot Games. The points earned went towards the construction of an artificial reef off the coast of Australia, near Moreton Island in Queensland. Last week, Riot released a video of the Nautilus statue—the base for the artificial reef—being placed on the ocean floor; watch the video above.

The challenge took place during International Ocean Week in January last year.  The challenge was for players to win games as any of League’s designated Ocean Week Challenge champions, including: Fizz, Gangplank, Graves, Lee Sin, Leona, Nami, Nautlius, Malphite, Renekton, Tristana, Gragas, Kassadin, Kog’Maw, Rengar, Singed, Syndra, Thresh, and Ziggs.

Depending on what type of LoL game players chose and how they partied up, a win was equivalent to one point, or one point per every person on their team. These points would then amount to rewards for the players, with 275,000 points in total needed in the week before Riot would build the artificial reef. Once the points target was reached players voted for which champion the statue would be: Fizz, Nami, or Nautilus the three choices. Riot’s goal was that if the points target was met, the statue would “become a home for sea creatures,” it said in their announcement.

To give players the chance to immortalise themselves at the bottom of the ocean, Riot challenged them to reach at least three points before the target points total was reached.  Those who achieved this had their Summoner Name engraved on the statue. 

In time, the statue of Nautilus will be a thriving home for the aquatic life off the Australian coastline, creating an ideal spot to scuba dive and potentially reversing some of the damage fishing and climate change has had on the area’s fish and coral species.  Let’s hope that Riot hosts a similar project again this year!

WORDS BY MILLY COLLISON