League of Legends and VALORANT fans have recently been treated to brand-new characters for their respective games, with Zeri dashing onto the Summoner’s Rift and Neon sliding into the agent roster this coming month. Many people, however, have noticed a handful of similarities that are looking a lot less like a coincidence, including the fact that the same voice actress played both characters.
In terms of design, both Neon and Zeri are covered in bright, neon colors with a twintail hairstyle. More importantly, these two characters share the same voice. Vanille Velasquez, a talented Filipina voice actress, confirmed that she was chosen to star as each character after she auditioned for both roles.
“You have no idea of the sheer excitement I had when they first told me I was auditioning for not just one, [but] two of their biggest games,” Velasquez said on social media. “I will keep saying thank you [to] Riot for trusting me to be a little part of your games. I hope I’m doing Zeri & Neon proud.”
In Zeri’s champion trailer, people noticed that her entire kit and powers are electricity-based. She is very mobile, sporting a quick dash, an ability that can seemingly jump over terrain, and she wields a gun that fires rounds at a rapid pace. In the animated portions of the video, she seems to shoot lightning out of her fingertips as well.
Overall, her abilities and powers were surprisingly similar to Neon, who is in a completely different world over in VALORANT. Neon’s ability list in the first-person shooter includes a sprint—which no other agent in the game can do—a slide, and an ultimate where she shoots lightning out of her fingertips.
Related: Here are all the abilities for Neon, VALORANT’s electric new agent
VALORANT is technically based in the real world, however, so Neon is officially from the Philippines. Zeri, on the other hand, comes from the fictional world of Zaun in Runeterra. Even still, people can’t help but wonder if this could be the start of a possible crossover between the universes of League and VALORANT. It wouldn’t be the first time that this would happen, since these worlds collided back during the RiotX Arcane event’s visual novel, with characters like Jett, Killjoy, Phoenix, and Yoru all teleporting into Piltover.
Whether these similarities have a deeper meaning or not, one thing is for certain: Zeri and Neon are set to inject some energy into the fan base when they release.
Update Jan. 6 6:40pm CT: Riot’s lead champion producer Ryan “Reav3” Mireles has confirmed on the League subreddit that the champion team and the VALORANT agent team collaborated and worked on Neon and Zeri together since her inception.
