A pair of swords crosses on a rain-battered battlefield. The fighters move gracefully, as if dancing. Between flashes of bloodshed, the couple argue about honor. It takes less than a minute for the viewer to understand the tense and difficult relationship between these two brothers. Sounds like a scene from a samurai movie, but it’s from the latest animated short from League of Legends. Developer Riot has created a gorgeous anime clip to officially reveal the game’s latest champion: Yone, a kind of demonic samurai character.
These types of lively and eye-catching revelations are not new territory for Riot. But Yone’s cinematic, called “Kin of the Stained Blade,” is longer and more ambitious than the studio has attempted in the past. It records at 10 minutes long and jumps back and forth between CG animation and hand-drawn anime art. “The scope was longer, and the timeline was almost the same,” jokes associate art director Mike Berry.
Animation is part of a stream. League event called “Spirit Blossom,” which brings an anime aesthetic to the venerable strategy game through character skins, a new dating simulator-like narrative experience, and more. Yone serves as a showcase piece. A week ago, Riot released a short anime clip called “The Path,” which explored a key moment in League of Legends science. Yasuo is one of the most popular characters in the game, and is known as a tortured soul because he was forced to kill his brother. You guessed it: his brother is Yone.
According to Berry, there were several elements: the event in the game, the desire to expand Yasuo’s backstory, and a fan base that regularly requested anime content, which inspired Yone’s elaborate reveal. “It seemed like an incredible time to dive in and tell Yasuo’s story, because he is one of our most popular, or infamous, champions depending on how you play with him,” he explains. “The moment felt good. We started there, and then added the goal to launch Yone. There is no way to tell Yasuo’s story and not tell Yone’s, and vice versa.
Riot has been working on the project for some time. Riot developed the story last fall, and got the official green light in January when the storyboard process began. (Riot partnered with two animation studios, Haoliners Animation and Paper Plane, on the project.) This means that while the animation team was working on the short, the actual Yone character to be implemented in the game was still changing. Berry says this can complicate matters, but the teams fix it by keeping in constant contact; For example, Berry spoke daily with Yone concept artist Justin Albers while working on the project.
The goal of these animated projects is not only to present a character, but also to show a different side of the League universe. Yasuo and Yone are samurai, but due to the type of experience League that is, they cannot have a sword fight in-game. “We really want to fuel the fantasy of what you’re going to get in the game,” says Berry. “We don’t have the limitations that you have in the game. There are many more sword fights in our piece than you are going to have in the game, because we don’t have to worry about cooldowns. A true samurai does not care about a cooldown. And that’s where we enter the anime space the most. “
One of the most striking things about “Kin of the Stained Blade” is the way it changes from one style of art to another. The scenes with the brothers’ deadly battle are portrayed as a classic anime, while the most current Yasuo story is done in 3D. (3D art is reminiscent of Arcane, a next League animated series). Part of this was a creative decision; Berry says the team wanted to abide by anime conventions, including having clever ways of displaying flashbacks. But there were also practical concerns. “We didn’t have 30 minutes to elegantly move between these two [timelines]”Berry explains.” Part of the decision was making sure we had two very different styles so you never doubted where you were on the timeline. “
Through the years, League Cinematics have spanned multiple genres and styles. They can be brilliant and fantastic or dark and dramatic. Sometimes they are K-pop videos. Berry, who also starred in the K / DA music video, says that whatever genre they explore, one of the key elements is being authentic to what came before.
“It is research,” he says. “Everyone on this project has to understand, if you still don’t get inside, exactly what people love about anime. And we have to look at that and make sure that we are bringing that to our room. Be it the visual style, the storytelling, the rhythm. We want to be extremely respectful. When we think about how we want to be measured, we never say ‘I want it to be a great Riot movie.’ We will be judged for the best of modern anime. “
