Riot Would Work Better in the Film industry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEz_P_jBL0o

Riot's Official Valorant Cinematics

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As a gaming company, Riot has developed multiple well-known games, such as Valorant and League of Legends. It seems the company prefers strategic and tactical game designs over other genres, but the ability to bring those games to life and fully immerse the player hasn’t always been their top contender; at least not in their games. Their ability to fully immerse people into these worlds comes from the short animations and series they have worked on. Specifically, Arcane and the Valorant shorts. 

Watching the Valorant cinematics for the first time had completely convinced me to get the game. Especially, if I got to see more content similar to the animated shorts they were releasing. However, I knew to some extent that the game wouldn’t be exactly like the cinematics, due to some restriction in game design in general, but a campaign with the characters with more cinematics would’ve have fixed that issue right up for me. Except, that’s not how Valorant is at all. The game follows the same game mechanics and gameplay as CSGO, only this time, you get abilities to throw at your opponent. Yet, it doesn’t change the fact what originally brought me to the game were the cinematics and the multiple trailers on the agents within the game. Making each character more loveable and unique, as they don’t just stand on one side or the other, they’re more or less morally gray; willing to do whatever is necessary to come out on top. 

When it comes to Arcane, it’s an entirely different story. Especially when Arcane isn’t like League of Legends at all, with it only using the characters and their backstories to tell the story. However, they don’t stop there, they show clear character development with each character having a purpose in the series, even when they aren’t seen in the game, and going beyond regular animation styles. The character development is quite clear with Jynx, Ekko, Vi, and Caitlyn, with their game characters being somewhat stale or dull versions of the ones adapted in the show. For example, Caitlyn often comes off as completely justice-driven and well disciplined or strict in League of Legends, but comes off more compassionate, determined, and stubborn in Arcane; with her determination for justice driving her to take over in the second season. While the personalities are similar, with her Arcane identity just expanding off her personality in League, I still would have never thought of her determination causing her misjudgment and would have thought of her more as a girl-scout type character. Which she does somewhat present as in the series, except it’s done in a more negative view and can come off as her being naive to the world around her. Besides getting to know the characters a little bit better, the animation style absolutely dominates the show. With it’s overall unique style and portrayal of the world, it draws me in and immerses me into the world, and like the Valorant cinematics, it made me want to play League of Legends. Except, Arcane is nothing like the game it’s adapted from, which only serves to make the game worse compared to the series. Especially, when it looks like they put more time and effort into animations than they do with their games. 

All together, when it comes to content from Riot Games, I’d prefer to see their animation or short cinematics compared to any content or information on their games. This is probably not something they had meant to achieve since they’re more notable as a gaming company. However, their games are just lack luster in comparison to their cinematics or works in animation. It doesn’t help when the animation style is unique and often takes on multiple different designs, ranging from using tradition art for each frame to the hand-painted visual-design and dynamic camer-work that brings the entire thing to life. Even the storyline is cohesive and continues smoothly leaving enough vagueness for the viewers to wonder whats gonna happen next but also give enough context to not leave them confused. In the end, I’d prefer more content from their cinematics rather than any new gaming content they’d release. It’s bad when I’d feel more hyped-up at the thought of having a series based on the Valorant cinematics than any new addition to the game itself. As the story within the cinematics is way more immersive than anything in the game itself.