Riot has released a new cinematic for League of Legends. “The Brink of Infinity” is supposed to herald the first season for 2023. However, not much happens in the approximately 2 minutes of the video – a disappointment for fans who are used to more. Riot responded in less than 24 hours and apologized. But the mood is pretty bad, even among the developers.
what is this video
LoL Season 2023: The Cinematic “The Brink of Infinity”
What’s the problem with the cinematic? Riot has usually been celebrated for the stunning cinematics and videos for years. It all started around 2018 when LoL made a K-pop band out of 4 heroines.
Since then, more and more effort has gone into the complex cinematics. For many fans, Riot is considered the new Blizzard in terms of the quality of the videos and sometimes also the games. In “The Brink of Infinity” but the attention to detail is missing.
The last cinematics showed heroes in action with fight choreography, details and interactions. All of that is missing in the latest video. There isn’t much to see other than a few hero weapons and some incised sounds from the LoL Worlds. The video is just a tracking shot through the map being played on.
“I can’t begin to explain how disappointing this year is”
Here’s how the fans react: The video has garnered just over 25,000 likes on YouTube in 24 hours. Dislikes can no longer be seen officially, but according to a browser extension, over 150,000 fans are said to have given the thumbs down.
Memes have cropped up in the comments that equate the video with the 2022 film Morbius, which was generally poorly received. The fans add scenes and praise something that never happened, apparently parodically.
In particular, the comparison with the last cinematic from 2022 is drawn. “The Call” had an impressive 138 million views in a very short time and is considered an absolute masterpiece for the community:
A bombastic League of Legends video has now garnered 138 million views – showing just how huge LoL is
The rift between The Call and Brink of Infinity disappoints fans here. It says something like, “The fact that the company itself saw the video and thought, ‘Yeah, that’s it’ after the 2022 cinematic is insane.” With over 24,000 upvotes, the most popular comment on YouTube is:
After the 2022 cinematic, I can’t begin to explain how DISAPPOINTING this year’s is.
This is how the developers react: Some of Riot’s employees are speaking out themselves on Twitter. Or exactly not. Because many seem to withdraw or explain why they don’t enjoy working as game developers right now.
Joe White, one of the developers, wrote on Twitter: “Nobody prepares you for the mental toughness that you need to work on video games. Things that are out of your control weigh you down and make you feel like shit.”
VFX artist Sirhaian, who is responsible for the graphic overhaul of many elements in LoL, even responds with only one image with the caption: “I’m so tired of this life”:
“We believed we could embody the wide universe”
Meanwhile, Riot released its own statement just a few hours after the release of the cinematics (via Twitter). We have translated the tweets for you here:
A message from Riot about the 2023 season:
We’ve delivered a cinematic as part of the season launch every year since 2018 and rest assured, everyone at League knows how much you love them. We also!
This year there were some unprecedented circumstances that forced us to take an alternative route for the 2023 season video. Still, we felt we could embody the broad universe and competitive spirit of League as we celebrate the start of the new season.
But we heard your feedback, and we want to note that Brink of Infinity fell short of the goal of an action-packed, champion-led trailer that you were expecting, and led to further speculation about our investment in League.
Honestly we should have been more communicative which would have helped some of that feeling and speculation. We believe League has a bright future and we’re investing in it, but we can do a better job of sharing those plans with you.
We are determined to give you more details on what this investment looks like over the next few days. We value your passion and feedback, the success of League would not be possible without your dedication. Thanks.
However, this statement triggers even more frustration in the community. Users on reddit, for example, are certain that such a quick reaction can only mean that something is really wrong there.
There are suspicions that the developers themselves would have liked to do something better, but that the decision was not up to them, but “above”. Users take the developers’ reaction as proof of their assumptions.
A lengthy comment from user Durncha reads, “This is pretty crazy from Riot. A PR response within hours of the video posting – You can see they’re scared. […] i love this game […] but it feels like they’re giving it up and turning it into a dirty mobile game.”
MeinMMO asked Riot for a statement on the development of the cinematics and the reactions of the community. There is currently no answer.
We also don’t know exactly what the future of LoL should look like. At least for the next champion there is already first information:
LoL: The New Monster Champion 2023 is a Demonic Killer Dog – The first Darkin since 2013