League of Legends remains incredibly popular both for players and for those who are fans of e-sports. As such, the League of Legends Annual World Championships draws a huge crowd, which this year celebrated its opening ceremony with a special K-Pop performance enhanced with augmented reality (AR).
The K-Pop performance was created specifically to promote the four new K/DA skins, which were recently introduced into League of Legends. To celebrate the launch, developer Riot Games teamed up with K-Pop group (G)I-DLE as well as American artists Madison Beer and Jaira Burns.
Riot Games decided to create a fictional K-Pop group called K/DA, which features hero characters Ahri, Akali, Evelynn and Kai’Sa as members. For the opening ceremony, Riot Games decided to bring fiction and reality together by having its fictional band perform alongside a real one.
The song Pop/Stars by (G)I-DLE was performed on stage, accompanied by the four K/DA skins through the power of AR. The AR skins emerge from the air and then glide across the stage, dancing and strutting to the tune of the song as the audience cheers in appreciation.
As well as the on-stage performance, there is also an accompanying animated music video for Pop/Stars which features all four of the K/DA skins. The music performance was designed to kick off the World Championships, taking place in Incheon, South Korea, in style.
The K/DA skins have been released in the League Store. One particular skin, the K/DA Kai’Sa Prestige Edition skin also comes with a unique loading screen, splash art and VFX, but is only available until 19th November, 2018. The Pop/Stars song cal also be purchased from Google Play and iTunes, among others, priced at $1.29 (USD).
This is not the first time that Riot Games has used AR for its big live events, as the 2017 World championships saw an AR dragon zooming around the Beijing National Stadium.
For future coverage on new uses of AR technology, keep checking back with VRFocus.