With another Worlds Championship, the premier international championship for League of Legends, comes a bundle of surprises. And this year, for the 10th anniversary of the game, developer and publisher Riot Games is stepping up their… well, game. Which means new skins!
They’ve already released their “anthem,” an annual empowerment pop tune that’s typically a collaboration between musical talents. Now, they have a little more in store to bring up the hype: some collaborations based on some unlikely sources. High fashion and hip-hop are coming together for this year’s Worlds Finals skins, and the results we’ve seen are already stunning.
True Damage — This Year’s Music Group
It looks like Riot is trying to follow up last year’s massively successful K/DA hype with a new music group. This time, it’s looking a lot more Western.
“True Damage” is this year’s massive in-game music collaboration. It notably reprises Soyeon of (G)I-DLE in her role Akali, but it’s got a few more big names, too. American singer Becky G and multi-talented Keke Palmer may be most familiar to many, but they’re not to be outdone by NYC rappers Thutmose and Duckwrth, both of who were featured as part of the wildly successful Spider-man: Into The Spider-verse soundtrack.
Now, we have a preview of what the in-game skins will look like. League dropped a trailer yesterday for the collaboration, which featured stylish hip-hop-inspired outfits.
The drop will, of course, come with the lore that League of Legends spin-off skins have become well-known for. On the Facebook page, they released official art of the True Damage group.
https://www.facebook.com/leagueoflegends/posts/10162744126110556
It’s also notably far more diverse affair than most of League’s prior projects. They’ve already roped in their brand-new black woman champion, Senna, who in the main League lore is Ekko’s wife. (Kudos.) But just the IRL musical names alone represent an interesting breadth of talent and background, so the final result should be interesting.
Louis Vuitton Collaboration
The League of Legends Worlds Championship Finals takes place this year in Paris, considered a fashion capital of the world. So naturally, to mark the occasion, Riot sought out one of the top French designers in the world.
Enter Louis Vuitton. The accessory and fashion designer was sought out by Riot for a multi-part collaboration, announced earlier this fall. First, they unveiled a one-of-a-kind trophy case for the massive Summoner’s Cup. The winning team will get to take the trophy with a classic style.
They also promise “traditional Louis Vuitton savoir-faire along with cutting-edge, high-tech elements inspired by the League of Legends universe.” We can’t really see it in the preview images — we don’t know if this is the final design anyway — but League’s aesthetic always follows through.
Then yesterday, alongside the True Damage reveal, they unveiled the first Louis Vuitton in-game skin: True Damage Qiyana Prestige Edition.
More Riot Games, Which Is Actually More Than One Game Now:
- League Worlds Championship Anthems So Far, Ranked By A League Hater
- Riot Teases LoL Fighting Game, Dungeon Crawler, and new Shooter IP
- Oh Right, and a Cartoon: Riot Unveils League Animated Series ‘Arcane’
Basically, this is an “elite” (read: higher-priced) version of the Qiyana skin that’ll be available alongside the other True Damage content. This was designed by Nicolas Ghesquière, Louis Vuitton’s artistic director of women’s collections, who also shared the key art on his Instagram.
If this is very much to your taste, it sounds like there’s more in store. The press release implied that multiple skins will be released when Worlds hits on November 10th.
Plus, there was a “capsule collection” announced for Worlds — which means, yes, real-world fashion instead of in-game microtransactions. League tends to tease these sorts of things, so hopefully we’ll see more in the next two weeks!
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