Riot has published explanations related to this year’s cinematic. What did the LoL developers have to say?
Riot has accustomed players to the fact that every year, with the start of the season, the official League of Legends channel on Youtube released a sensational cinematic that caused goosebumps. This year, however, the creators released something completely different, and many people initially thought it wasn’t the actual video that would start off the season.
Not surprisingly, when juxtaposed with what players expected, the published animation caused quite a bit of controversy. There were numerous critical comments online, and the creators had no choice but to address them.
Riot vs. wave of criticism
Despite the fact that every year the League of Legends developers have published an uplifting cinematic, this time a shorter video has been published for the start of the season, in which you can see Summoner’s Rift in a more realistic way, and you can most likely hear the voice of one of the future heroes in the background.
The comments are teeming with ironic comments and jokes about the fact that literally, nothing happens in the cinematic, and other players have directly written that Riot simply didn’t make an effort and the starting season promises to be the worst among those of recent years.
One can search in vain for a comment that doesn’t in some way ridicule the developers’ approach, and the ratio of likes to dislikes is overwhelming.
Riot, in order to somehow get out of the embarrassing situation, published an official explanation.
We’ve launched a cinematic as a part of Season Start every year since 2018, and make no mistake: everyone on League knows how much you love them. So do we!
This year, there were some unprecedented circumstances that had us choose an alternate approach to the Season 2023 video. However, we believed it could still embody League’s broad universe and competitive spirit while celebrating the start of a new season.
But we’ve heard your feedback, and we want to acknowledge Brink of Infinity missed the mark for the action-packed, champion-led trailer you expected and has led to further speculation about our investment in League.
Honestly, we should have been more communicative, which might have helped with some of that feeling and speculation. We do believe that League has a bright future and we are investing in that, but we can do a better job of sharing those plans with you.
We are committed to giving you more details about what that investment looks like in the next couple of days.
We really appreciate your passion and feedback, and League’s success wouldn’t be possible without your dedication. Thank you.
Unfortunately for the developers, the numerous comments that can be found under Riot’s response are not very enthusiastic. Players write that the developers are letting players down every once in a while, and the only thing they are focusing on are skins.
No one cares, you should’ve maintaned things as they were back in 2019.
A really good season cinematic, a proper mid-year theme event, kinda descent loot system and cool skins without making them feel rushed or low quality.
League is not dying, you guys are killing it slowly.
It’s hard to say what exactly the LoL developers are preparing for players. Unless it’s something truly jaw-dropping, it may be difficult for Riot to regain players’ trust.