How Riot Games Built The ‘League Of Legends’ World Championship During A Pandemic
Despite the odds, the League of Legends World Championship ends this weekend. -RIOT GAMES INC. VIA GETTY IMAGES
Go back just a few months and there were serious questions raised about the likelihood of the League of Legends World Championship even taking place this year. The pandemic threw a spanner in the works months ago, but just as things were starting to look up, China banned all sporting events for the rest of the year and COVID-19 cases started to rise once again.
Since the start of the pandemic there has been almost no in-person international esports competitions, with the likes of The International Dota 2 world championship and all CS:GO Majors being pushed into 2021. With the League of Legends World Championship arguably being a bigger event than both of them and expected to draw a significantly larger in-person crowd, the event seemed doomed to be postponed.
But despite this, we are now less than 24 hours away from the grand final of the League of Legends World Championship, where Korean team Damwon Gaming will take on Chinese team Suning in a best of five match. Amazingly there will even be 6000 fans in attendance to cheer on the teams.
“It's definitely been the most challenging World Championship to date,” says Trevor “Quickshot” Henry, On-Air Talent Manager and Caster at Riot Games. “I think after 2020 and after the impact that COVID has had on absolutely everyone around the world, it's been draining and it's been challenging and frankly, it's been a bit sad. You know, we lost both VCS, Vietnamese, teams because of COVID and visa implications getting into China, and PSG had multiple players impacted and for the first World Championship ever, we as the broadcast team haven't been able to collaborate with broadcast partners, with producers, with shoutcasters and have not been able to interact and see each other on the ground… I definitely absolutely miss interacting and working with my colleagues as a shoutcaster on the show. Not being able to shoutcast with the other regional casters and mixing the different broadcast personalities has been a big challenge to overcome.”
Worlds has taken over Shanghai -GETTY IMAGES
For Henry, who is one of the people leading the broadcast team for the English language stream for Worlds 2020, it has not been an easy year at all. Early on in the season, the players went fully remote, and while the broadcast did eventually return to the studio, it was not the normal setup.
“You go back to the beginning of the year and COVID puts the red light on pretty much everything, and week eight of the Spring Split of LEC, we had to cancel the show,” says Henry. “There was a potential [COVID-19] scare, unfortunately, the test results came back negative, but we moved to an online broadcast for the remainder of the spring season. There was a very brief period of time where I was terrified I wouldn't be able to work and I was terrified the league would get shut down. But very fortunately, we were able to continue producing the show and develop a lot of strengths and a lot of learning and understanding on how to do that. [Being in] Europe and Germany, in particular, we were fortunate to go back to the studio.”
With even the regional leagues at one point being threatened by the pandemic, just having a World Championship seemed unlikely, but Riot and the events team managed to find a solution in the end. Thanks to China being somewhat ahead of the rest of the world in terms of managing the pandemic, a bubble system much like the one used in the NBA was implemented in Shanghai, with players from across the world competing in the same studio, but with strict COVID-19 safety measures in place.
The Summoner’s Cup is what Damwon and Suning are competing for. -RIOT GAMES INC. VIA GETTY IMAGES
“With the Mid Season Invitational being changed to the Mid Season Streamathon, I had a lot of fear that the World Championship may not happen,” says Henry. “But we were able to create an environment where the players and the broadcast team on the ground in Shanghai could work and operate safely, and there are checks and balances put into place to maintain that level of security. The fact that we've had the World Championship is by far my biggest source of happiness and inspiration.”
While Henry is right that the fact there even is a World Championship to watch is a remarkable achievement given the circumstances, when the bubble system and closed studio format was announced many fans were disappointed, as Worlds is typically a massive show with impressive staging and incredible production. Being confined to a small studio would suggest that Worlds 2020 would be underwhelming compared to other events, but some incredible work from the tech team produced a studio the likes of which has never been seen before. You really do have to see it to believe it.
“We have been integrating XR technology into our broadcasts since 2016, and so we knew that this technology was something we wanted to go big on in 2020,” says Nick Troop, Executive Producer of Worlds 2020. “The decision to use XR to the extent it is being deployed in the broadcast today was an evolution of conversations going back to May of 2020. We recognized this technology would enable us to bring fans closer to the action and allow them to dramatically increase engagement with the broadcast. We wanted to make sure every viewer, as soon as they joined the stream, was blown away and felt completely immersed in Worlds, the same way they would if they were physically in the audience.”
Without having to worry about fans in attendance and what experience they will see, Riot Games and the team at Lux Machina, the company Riot partnered with to build the impressive studio, could implement some new things that have never been seen in League of Legends before. During the pick and ban phase champions appear in the studio, when an in-game event happens such as Baron being taken the studio reacts, and when a team wins they can celebrate by pretending to throw each other into a virtual pool of water.
The studio for Worlds has been impressive. RIOT GAMES INC. VIA GETTY IMAGES
“The special effects that you saw during pick and ban phases were powered by original code that the teams at Riot Games, Possible Productions, and Lux Machina partnered to develop specifically for these moments,” says Wyatt Bartel, Senior Technical Director at Lux Machina. “This code allows game data to pass back and forth between the Lux Machina modified Unreal Engine powering the stage and the battle taking place on the Rift. Certain moments like Champion Select, player deaths, and Baron also trigger the stage to automatically begin our special effects; making what’s happening in the digital world of the Rift flow into the real world dynamically. I don't think any team has done as deep an integration between technologies as the Riot production team did this year at Worlds 2020.”
But now the action is, somewhat unbelievably, moving to the brand new SAIC Motor Pudong Arena in Shanghai, where the final will take place tomorrow, October 31, at 3 am PT. 6000 fans will be in attendance to watch, becoming the first major esport event in months to welcome back supporters, but that number could have been much higher, with over 3.2 million real people applying to get tickets for the final.
A sneak peek of the setup for Worlds 2020 at the Shanghai Pudong Football Stadium -VCG VIA GETTY IMAGES
With a crowd in attendance, and an incredibly high standard being set by the opening segments for each stage of the competition the pressure is now on the tech and production teams to deliver a memorable opening ceremony. Riot has never let us down in this regard before, and despite the extra logistical challenges posed by the nightmare that is 2020, the team is confident that this year will be no different.
“Those who have followed Worlds for a while know that we like to go big for the Opening Ceremony presented by Mastercard,” says Troop. “This year, I believe we will continue to deliver on the expectations of our amazing fans. The world's top technical talent, artist, performers, dancers and musicians have come together to deliver an exciting start to the day’s competition and we couldn’t be more excited for fans to finally experience what we have been working toward.”
Riot Games has done a ridiculously impressive job in putting Worlds 2020 together, something that genuinely seemed impossible just a few months ago. The event has been entertaining, incredibly well received and a complete breath of fresh air into the esports space that was starting to struggle as the retro allure of online-only events started to diminish.
But the real stars of the show are of course the 10 players that will walk onto the stage tomorrow for the biggest moment of their lives. Neither team has won a World Championship before, and now they are both just one match away from being the best in the world and having their lives changed forever.
Korean side Damwon Gaming goes in as the favoured team, being the top seed from Korea and barely looking challenged throughout the tournament so far. But their Chinese opponents Suning have the home-field advantage, with a crowd that will surely be 100% behind them, and have proven that they can take down the biggest teams in the competition. Beating out local rivals Top Esports in the semi-final was a real show of strength from Suning, so it really is all to play for.
“I have built a career on bold statements and bold predictions and I will not disappoint you,” says Henry, teasing his prediction for the final. “I hate predicting finals because I always have to balance what my head thinks and what my heart thinks. My head is telling me that Damwon are favoured, that this will be a 3-0 or a 3-1 on their side. However, I will predict that Suning will rise above once again. The story and the development that this team has shown throughout the course of the World Championship, they have proven that they can take down all LPL opposition, they found a recipient and a formula to do that. They surprised everybody twice, and they've been surprising everybody this entire World Championship. I think they're gonna surprise again, and I think that Suning will win a hard-fought series and the score will be 3-2.”
Regardless of the result tomorrow there is no doubt that Worlds 2020 will go down as one of the strangest in history, but it is also arguably the most important since the first one. Despite everything that this year has thrown at Riot Games the company and its partners has still managed to produce a truly massive event, that still feels like the most important moment in esports this year. 2020 has been a wild ride, but throughout it all, we have still had League of Legends to keep us entertained. Now let's see what these teams can do on the Rift.