Riot has released a new cinematic for League of Legends. “The Brink of Infinity” is set to usher in the first season of 2023. However, not much happens in the roughly 2 minutes of the video – a disappointment for fans who are used to more. Riot responds in less than 24 hours and apologizes. The mood is rather bad, even among the developers.
What kind of video is it?
- The Brink of Infinity was released on January 10 on the YouTube channel of League of Legends.
- The cinematic lasts 2:06 minutes and features a camera pan through the Summoner’s Rift, accompanied by a narrative voice.
- With the video, Riot aims to launch the new Season 13, which starts on January 11. You can find all the info about Season 13 in League of Legends on MeinMMO here.
What is the problem with the cinematic? Riot has been praised for its breathtaking cinematics and videos for years. This started around 2018, when LoL made a K-Pop band out of 4 heroines.
Since then, more and more effort has been put into the elaborate cinematics. Riot is considered by many fans to be the new Blizzard when it comes to video quality and sometimes even game quality. However, “The Brink of Infinity” lacks the love for detail.
The last cinematics showed heroes in action with fight choreographies, details, and interactions. The latest video lacks all that. Apart from a few weapons from heroes and some cut sounds from the LoL Worlds, there is not much to see. The video is just a camera pan through the map on which the game is played.
“I can’t even start to explain how disappointing it is this year”
Here’s how the fans react: The video has garnered just over 25,000 likes on YouTube within 24 hours. Dislikes can no longer be officially seen, but according to a browser extension, over 150,000 fans have pressed the thumbs down.
In the comments, memes are appearing that equate the video with the movie Morbius from 2022, which generally did not fare well. The fans are adding scenes and praising something that hasn’t happened, apparently in a parodistic manner.
Especially the comparison with the last cinematic of 2022 is being made. “The Call” had a whopping 138 million views in a short time and is considered an absolute masterpiece by the community:
The gap between The Call and Brink of Infinity disappoints the fans here. It is said, for example: “The fact that the company itself watched the video and thought: ‘Wow, this is it’ after the 2022 cinematic is madness.” With over 24,000 upvotes, the most popular comment on YouTube states:
After the 2022 cinematic, I can’t even start to explain how DISAPPOINTING this year’s one is.
Here’s how the developers react: Some of the employees from Riot are speaking out on Twitter themselves. Or rather, they seem to be retreating or explaining why they are not enjoying working as game developers right now.
Joe White, for example, one of the developers, writes on Twitter: “No one prepares you for the mental resilience you need to work in video games. Things beyond your control weigh heavily on you and make you feel like crap.”
The VFX artist Sirhaian, who is responsible for the graphical overhaul of many elements in LoL, even reacts with an image captioned: “I’m so tired of this life”:
“We believed we could embody the broad universe”
Meanwhile, Riot has released its own statement, just a few hours after the release of the cinematic (via Twitter). We have translated the tweets for you:
A message from Riot about Season 2023:
We brought a cinematic as part of the season start every year since 2018 and rest assured: everyone at League knows how much you love them. So do we!
This year there were a few unprecedented circumstances that forced us to take an alternate route for the Season 2023 video. Nevertheless, we believed we could embody the broad universe and the competitive spirit of League while celebrating the start of the new season.
But we heard your feedback and we want to acknowledge that Brink of Infinity missed the mark of an action-packed, champion-led trailer that you expected and led to further speculation about our investment in League.
To be honest, we should have been more communicative, which would have alleviated some of these feelings and speculations. We believe that League has a bright future and we are investing in it, but we can do a better job sharing these plans with you.
We are determined to give you more details in the coming days about what this investment looks like. We appreciate your passion and your feedback; the success of League would not be possible without your commitment. Thank you.
This statement, however, triggers even more frustration in the community. Users on Reddit are convinced that such a quick reaction can only mean that something is really wrong.
Speculation arises that the developers themselves would have liked to do something better, but the decision is not theirs to make, but rather “higher up”. Users take the reaction of the developers as evidence for their assumptions.
Other users doubt that there is actually something behind Riot’s statement and suspect empty words. Most fans seem to be frustrated and want to voice their feelings.
MeinMMO asked Riot for a statement regarding the development of the cinematic and the reactions of the community. A response is still pending.
We also do not yet know what the future of LoL will look like. At least, there is already some info about the next champion:
LoL: The new monster champion 2023 is a demonic killer dog – The first Darkin since 2013
