A brand new yr means a brand new League of Legends season. And for the previous few years, this has additionally meant an enormous, cinematic trailer to announce the brand new season. Nonetheless, this time the trailer for League of Legends’ subsequent season was fairly dang boring and underwhelming, particularly when in comparison with final yr’s. Actually, the response from the group was so unhealthy that Riot felt the necessity to apologize and clarify why the trailer was so lackluster on Twitter.
Since 2018, Riot has created and launched extraordinarily cinematic and epic trailers for every new season of the long-running F2P MOBA. Final yr’s trailer for Season 2022 was significantly well-liked amongst followers, cited as probably the greatest trailers the corporate had ever produced for League of Legends. And previous trailers have additionally been large hits among the many group. So anticipation round this yr’s new season and trailer was very excessive.
In order that makes it even worse that the precise trailer we bought, titled The Brink of Infinity, was a boring two minutes or so of narration whereas the digital camera flies across the well-known battleground from LoL. And…that’s it. As you would possibly anticipate, the group and its many gamers principally began dunking on this trailer from the second it went stay yesterday.
“After the 2022 cinematic, I can’t even start to clarify how DISAPPOINTING this yr’s is” commented one consumer on YouTube. “I by no means thought that I [would] ever dislike a cinematic from League,” mentioned one other viewer. Many others joked that the brand new trailer was simply the unique LoL map, Summoner’s Rift, re-rendered in Unreal Engine 5. In lower than an hour it reportedly had over 5k dislikes. As I write this now, the trailer has over 170k dislikes. Throughout Twitter and Reddit folks had been vital of the trailer, with some complaining that Riot cared extra about its well-liked FPS Valorant than its ageing MOBA.
After hours and hours of those reactions pouring in together with rumors and hypothesis operating wild that Riot wasn’t planning to help League of Legends as a lot because it had earlier than or that the sport may be dying, the studio itself stepped in and defined via a Twitter thread what occurred with the trailer, and apologized to the group.
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“This yr, there have been some unprecedented circumstances that had us select an alternate strategy to the Season 2023 video,” defined Riot. “Nonetheless, we believed it might nonetheless embody League’s broad universe and aggressive spirit whereas celebrating the beginning of a brand new season. However we’ve heard your suggestions, and we wish to acknowledge Brink of Infinity missed the mark for the action-packed, champion-led trailer you anticipated and has led to additional hypothesis about our funding in League.”
Riot additional defined that it ought to have been “extra communicative” concerning the trailer and its totally different strategy this yr, suggesting that this might have helped keep away from the “feeling” that the corporate wasn’t as invested in LoL in 2023 because it has been prior to now.
“We do imagine that League has a shiny future and we’re investing in that, however we will do a greater job of sharing these plans with you,” tweeted Riot. “We’re dedicated to providing you with extra particulars about what that funding seems like within the subsequent couple of days. We actually admire your ardour and suggestions, and League’s success wouldn’t be attainable with out your dedication. Thanks.”
Kotaku reached out to Riot for additional touch upon the trailer and the group’s response.
Response to Riot’s Twitter thread was combined, with some joyful that it was at the least acknowledging the frustration and frustration and others upset that Riot wasn’t doing extra to help League of Legends and its group. And for a lot of, this response doesn’t quell their issues that the corporate could also be extra targeted on different tasks and video games, like Valorant, and could possibly be placing League on the backburner.