Worlds 2017

The League of Legends World Championship is Riot’s most significant endeavor to grow esports and Riot Games' brand awareness globally. The overarching creative vision, strategy, and direction that drives the campaign and the event itself is a year-long endeavor that involves cross-studio collaboration with virtually every product and regional team across Riot and the marshaling of multiple creative studios worldwide. The various tactics ran the gamut of marketing creative executions. They included a highly anticipated musical anthem and video, multi-pronged awareness and brand campaigns, live-event stage design and production for the Finals opening ceremony and broader tournament across 4 different venues, broadcast graphic packages, OOH tactics, a merch capsule collection, and even the design of the champion‘s medals and the trophy podium. Oh, and there was also a life-size bronze statue...

Worlds 2017 remains the most-viewed esports event of all time.

Tradition Reimagined

For the 2017 keyart, our collaboration with the regional team and a Chinese concept artist was instrumental in creating a modernized take on Mudiao, a traditional Chinese wood-carving form of sculpture. This joint effort resulted in a unique blend of culture and League IP and resonated with the “Prestige” brand pillar of Worlds. The use of white marble and gold, the clash of iconic creatures from League of Legends, and the campaign tagline in both English and traditional Mandarin calligraphy were all an effort to pay tribute to the host nation through the meaningful inclusion of Chinese culture into the creative expressions of the Worlds campaign.

An Anticipated Anthem

It began with Worlds 2014. That year, we introduced an epic event anthem for LoL Esports by Imagine Dragons (who were also the main act of the Championship Finals opening ceremony) which was coupled with a CG music video by Fortiche Productions (of future Arkane series fame). From that moment on the Worlds anthem has served as the punctuation for the year for esports fans and the entire LoL player population. The anthem for Worlds 2017 would deliver on that tradition.

“Legends Never Die” was a collaboration between Riot Games Music, musical artist, Against the Current, and directing duo, RoyGBiv. It was realized as a music video and as the anchoring performance of the Finals opening ceremony, which took place in the storied Bird’s Nest Olympic stadium in Beijing. The track and music video portrays the perseverance and grit required to become legendary through the stories of three League of Legends Champion characters and is the embodiment of the campaign tagline, Chase Your Legend.

Bird’s Nest to Dragon’s Lair

Paying tribute to the host country is always a priority for the entire campaign, especially regarding the opening ceremony for the championship finals. This year, the show would feature an authentic Chinese Erhu player, dancers in Peking opera masks modeled as LoL champions, an appearance by superstar Jay Chou, and a live performance of “Legends Never Die” by Against the Current. But, we felt that we weren’t fully taking advantage of the scale of the Bird’s Nest venue. The solution was to test the limits of augmented reality (AR) by bringing an Elder Dragon to life within the stadium to cap off the performance and precede the introduction of the competitors. To pull it off (as we imagined it) would require collaboration between the LoL game dev and esports broadcast teams, as well as an AR partner willing to try something beyond the standard “float-a-scoreboard-above-the-field-of-play” executions common to traditional sports broadcasts at the time.

Trial and Error and Grit

From the initial concept development and rendering required to convert the Elder Drake from the League of Legends in-game style to a more photoreal version that would look correct IRL, to the final animation (how should an angry dragon behave in a massive stadium?) and performance, new challenges cropped up daily.

Worlds Team:

Thiago Gutierrez / Kim Koszoru / Joe Elliott / Charles Kim / Casey Britt / Eric Wu / Matt Dickey / Mo Yan / José Martinez / George Ahlmeyer / Daniel Stolzman / Viranda Tantula / Sebastian Najan / Maiko / ATC / Ke Su / Evan Viera / Ariel Horn / Justin Restaino / Jerry O’Flaherty

creative partners: