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Andy De Luna

Professor Briones

ENGL 123

10/19/2022

"Star Walkin’” in the eyes of gamers

“Star Walkin’” is the new song released by Riot Games to celebrate the Worlds 2022

Championship for its main game “League of Legends”: “League of Legends” is one of the most

famous videogames with “over 117 million players […] actively playing monthly” (“League of

Legends”). The World’s Championship has been a major event in the Esports world, and, ever

since 2014, has been accompanied by powerful anthems and cinematics that hype the gaming

community for the big event. However, this year, people’s reception over the newly released

anthem and cinematic have been different of those from past years. There are reasons why to
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believe the song, although not very suited for

a World’s championship song, it not the issue

the community is dealing with, but to argue

that the cinematic itself seems to be taking

away the hype seen in previous years.

To begin with, people have agreed on social media that the song is not bad, but it does

not feel like a World’s song. Just by doing a quick search on YouTube, people can see users

making changes to the original song in order to add hype into it. As pointed out by a YouTube

user, “It's so cool how a few drops change the song and its vibe. I really like the original, but it

was missing these punch moments. Thanks for the edit man.” (g_b_nobody). It is important to

note that the one in charge of the production of the song was Lil Nas X’s team which can to the

differences in the songs. Also, another thing that people seem to miss is the addition of orchestral

instruments into the song to make it more epic. Ever since 2014, except 2016, every song had an

orchestral element which added emotion to them; people feel the song just feels too bland.

In addition, the cinematic of the music video changed from those seen in the past. It went

from being centered around the fantasy world inside “League of Legends” to be purely based on

the real-life World’s competition. The only moment in which we see some of the champions of

the game is at the end of the video when they are about to engage in some action, and, out of the

sudden, the cinematic ends. On previous World’s cinematics, the players were represented as one

of their most iconic champions, and everything was centered in a mixture between the fantasy

world of the game and the actual competition. For instance, the newly released cinematic feels

more like an advertisement rather than a hype anthem for players to get excited about. An

example of this can be seen at the start of the video. We see landmarks that indicate where the
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competition is going to take place, San Francisco, but right after that we see some of the players

posing with a Mercedes-Benz vehicle taking the front focus of the shot. Although it is

understandable that companies need to advertise in order to get funds, doing so at the beginning

of an anthem takes out the magic from it.

Moreover, over in YouTube, there have been plenty of fan made videos replacing the

“Star Walkin’” cinematic with the previous ones, which people seem to enjoy more as stated by

this YouTube comment, “This makes it all too clear that the song ain't the problem, it's the MV

which lacks the hype factor.” (That’s Awesome). To reinforce the point, people seem not to

dislike the song as much as they do the video because of the radical difference it has compared to

the previous ones. As a special point, ever since the release of Arcane, the bar for new content

has been set very high for Riot Games, which can interfere on how people feel about “Star

Walkin’.”

To conclude with, the newly released song “Star Walkin’” seems to have united the

“League of Legends” community with one statement, it is good but does not feel like a World’s

anthem. By proving that the song could radically change by adding a few drops and orchestral

elements, the cinematic seems to be what is holding the song back from becoming great. The

enormous difference when compared to the previous cinematics and the change from fantasy to

more real-life theme seems not to be of the liking for the gaming community and, instead of

generating hype for the World’s Competition, it has created conflict within the community.

Although the song has not been as successful as it could have been, the community is giving

feedback by creating videos changing the visuals and audio of the song, which should help Riot

Games in the future events.

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Works Cited.

g_b_nobody. “Star Walkin' , but I Added Drops.” YouTube, YouTube, 23 Sept. 2022, https://

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsmSFL8bY5s.

“League of Legends.” The Game Statistics Authority : ActivePlayer.io, 7 Sept. 2022, https://ac-

tiveplayer.io/league-of-legends/.

That's Awesome. “Star Walkin' but with Phoenix Visuals (League of Legends).” YouTube,

YouTube, 22 Sept. 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPKR-Oi1uJM.