League of Legends: Wild Rift released a generative AI trailer to promote the game’s third anniversary earlier this week. The trailer has since been removed due to significant fan backlash.
Riot Games and parent company Tencent have come under fire this week after the company published an AI-generated trailer for its game League of Legends: Wild Rift.
The video was officially posted on Wild Rift China’s Weibo account, celebrating Wild Rift‘s third anniversary. The cinematic featured famous League of Legends characters, including Jinx, Yasuo, Aurora, Ezreal, and Seraphine, all rendered using AI.
Fans immediately retaliated against the video, prompting the official Weibo account to remove it. However, fans have republished it across social media.
You can see the nightmare fuel below.
Needless to say, this slop looks bad. After the stellar animation by Studio Fortiche for Arcane, Riot’s official League of Legends animated show, seeing the company’s characters animated by AI highlights how bad this stuff looks.
What’s even more bizzare, is how wildly inaccurate the video depicts the franchises famous characters. Jinx is using a Glock and a flamethrower to shoot random monsters, the character Yasuo is wielding a lightsaber, and Ezreal looks like he’s on meth. It’s a bizarre string of circumstances that makes one wonder if anyone even watched this before publishing it.
“This is a slap in the face for every artist who has worked to bring the world of Runterra to life through their art for the past 15 years,” X user Aroush wrote.
Another user shared on the official Wild Rift subreddit, “Why fk around with AI when you have proper animators? Using this much AI is disrespectful not only for the fans but towards the animation industry.”
Wild Rift Executive Producer David Xu took to X to tackle concerns about the video’s quality and origins. The message says the “creator-made” video “did not hit the mark”. Xu’s statement thanks fans for their feedback, but does not confirm whether or not the company will use generative artificial intelligence in the future. You can read the full statement below.
While it appears the backlash to this has prompted Riot to retract the trailer officially, the company isn’t the first to utilise AI in the gaming space.
Activision admitted to using AI to generate Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 loading screens after fans called them out for it. Microsoft also announced earlier this year that it plans to integrate AI into basically everything it can.
While some are curious about how AI can streamline the development process, many developers, including NieR director Yoko Taro, have warned that the move will cost game developers their jobs in the future.
Microsoft announced in July that it would lay off 9000 workers, with significant cuts to its Xbox gaming division. The company has since reported a $4 trillion USD market valuation.
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