So I recently got back into Paladins: Champions of the Realm, a little hero shooter from Hi Rez that I loved a lot from 2016-2021 and is still going today. It's been fun, and I realized just how much I fuck with each of the game's character designs, and the designs of each of the game's major skins. I decided I'd go through and see if I can't manage to chatter up and semi-review each of the game's characters in alphabetical order as well as their skins.
Note: For the most part, I will only be touching on a skin if it has a unique voice pack (this is most of them) or have some other significance (for example, the ones that were distributed during very short periods of time such as Strike Maeve.) I will also be touching on each skin's weapon as you are actually allowed to freely mix each skin with another skin's weapon if so choose, so each are meant to stand on their own.
That brings us to our first Champion of the Realm: Androxus
Androxus is the edgy cool-boy anti-hero archetype in a nutshell. He's the face on all of the promotional art, a portrait of him serves as the game's icon on the console versions, and his splash art is the game's steam banner, and as a mascot he certainly is visually striking. The distinct horns on Androxus's mask, the green glow in his eyes and on his weapon, and of course, his prominent fucked-up looking arm make it clear that this man is twisted, corrupted by something, and he is drenched in sinister energy. Simultaneously, though, the dark bandages he wears, his torn sleeve and the weathered cape make it clear that he is not invincible, he's taken wounds in battle, and he's still alive regardless. It's not a perfect design, mind you, and it's certainly not treading any revolutionary new ground, Androxus does not reinvent the wheel of a badass anti-hero, but it serves the purpose of selling you on this amoral lone wolf killer exceedingly well.
Androxus's gun, on the other hand, is comparatively more inventive. The barrel of the gun is the top jaw of a very prominent mouth with sharp, gnarled-looking teeth built into the weapon, as if the gun itself is gritting its teeth with malice. If Androxus himself didn't sell you on the idea that this guy is fucked up and evil, the revolver certainly will. The revolver has a break action reload and when you reload it in-game, the unspent casings drift away before disappearing, as if they were simply the ghosts of the bullets you fired, which is a really fun touch. My only issue with it is that it maybe doesn't look rough enough? Besides some scratches, the weapon itself looks to be mostly pristine which conflicts with Androxus's otherwise very war-torn design. Maybe if it looked a little more beaten-up it'd fit a tiny bit more.
Overall I'd probably give my boy Andro an 8/10 rating. He's very effective at what he does, but what he does is admittedly not super special all things considered, and I can't say he sticks in my head anywhere near as much as some other antihero designs.
This leads me into Steam Demon, the first skin Androxus ever got back in 2017, and boy what a start it was. Steam Demon completely reimagines Androxus as a steampunk/chempunk gentleman scientist using his experiments as weaponry, his mask turned into something of a protective gas mask and his cursed arm turned into a brass metal prosthetic. The vials of mysterious green goo in Steam Demon's weapon and arm, as well as the capsule he wears on his belt is immediately recognizable as a dangerous, further reinforcing the fact that he is a man of science and proposing the idea that he might just be a little bit reckless in pursuit of his research. This adventurous scientist-explorer angle is further reinforced by the fact that Steam Demon's trousers and his boots are caked in mud, and together with the prosthetic arm and hand cannon, overall builds a cohesive image of a man who's unafraid to get his hands dirty in the name of science, literally or metaphorically
Steam Demon's weapon is also quite the interesting piece of work. The razor-sharp teeth resembling that of a demon or a beast are gone, instead replaced with the teeth of, fittingly, a clockwork mechanism, leaning further into the steampunk aesthetic. The weapon itself is also notably not a traditional revolver, instead being a bizarre chemical apparatus of some kind, and the cylinder is instead a small vial of mysterious green goop that is almost certainly highly toxic. When used in-game this weapon actually has a unique reload animation where Androxus will fold the weapon and let steam out of the vial before closing it again, a neat twist on the formula and keeping the weapon recognizably break action.
All in all, I'd have to give Steam Demon Androxus a solid 10/10 rating, honestly. While there are a couple things I'd change here or there, the horns kinda look a little silly on this skin without any real demon iconography to pull from for one, I think this skin accomplishes everything it sets out to do with flying colors, using the tropes of steampunk and chempunk to make a design that just truly sells the concept without ever feeling like it's trying too hard or not hard enough. Paladins actually doesn't have any other steampunk skins or iconography anywhere else in the game, which is really unfortunate in my opinion as they really knocked it out of the ballpark on the first try. Oh well.
Whew, that was more words than I was expecting to have for these. I think I'll have to chop these posts up into 2 or 3 skins at a time so I don't burn myself out. I hope this was insightful or at the very least entertaining to read, and I hope to make more of these in the future. Tata for now.~
Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4 | Set 5
Paladins Valentines card dump!
To our special community, courtesy of Mod Torvald and Mod Inara <3
Happy Singles awareness day, everyone! And Happy Lunar New Year!
