Wild Rift China recently released a cinematic to celebrate three years of the mobile MOBA's existence, but it "did not hit the mark".
When it comes to cinematic content, Riot is usually on top of the game. Whether it's cinematics, music videos or champion announcements, Riot can pull off stunningly beautiful visuals that rival the golden era of Blizzard cinematics. Even Wild Rift – the mobile version of League of Legends – has great cinematics inviting you to play.
But Wild Rift China has recently uploaded a video to the Chinese social media platform Weibo that made a lot of fans (understandably) angry. With this video, they wanted to celebrate the 3 Year Anniversary of the game's existence in china.
Wait, What?
The first thing that's noticeable when watching the cinematic is the obvious use of AI. The faces, the movement, even the song – it's all AI. On top of that, it just looks horrible and seems very "inspired" by something else. In the video, we see a few characters of the game gather around a birthday cake with a three on it, but then monsters interrupt them and they have to fight before they appear on a stage and sing.
Did that desciption ring a bell? 'Cause it feels a lot like the opening to the very famous movie KPop Demon Hunters. The movie starts with the girls wanting to eat their ramen before demons interrupt them and they fight their way onto the stage. It seems like Wild Rift China just asked an AI to create a video and to copy one of the most popular movies of the year.
Riot's Apology
After the quick and stern backlash by the community, Wild Rift's executive producer David "Papa Smoothie" Xu apologized for what happened over at Wild Rift China. But the apology itself seemed a bit deflective and did not address some of the fans concerns.
Hey folks, yesterday we posted a creator-made video on our official Weibo channel that, frankly, did not hit the mark. When we post content on our official channels, it's on us to maintain a high quality bar and be clear about where it came from. Thank you for all the feedback,...
— PapaSmoothie (@PapaSmoothie) August 5, 2025
One interesting aspect is how Papa Smoothie calls the video "creator-made". Because fans were quick to point out that it does not even take fifteen seconds to recognize the obvious use of AI. And the more you look at it, the worse it gets. For example:
- Why does Jinx suddenly shoot a normal gun instead of her quirky weapons?
- Why does Yasuo have three arms at one point?
- Who's that red haired character at the end supposed to be?
I could go on and on about the many failings of this cinematic. Fans are rightfully worried about the lack of communication and management between the different Wild Rift offices and Riot. The video has since been deleted from Weibo, but this definitely marks a low point for the company that brought us one of the most uniquely animated shows Arcane.