The 13th League of Legends season started out not so smooth.
Leading up to the esports kickoff event, many fans began voicing their displeasure with Riot Games’ lack of communication regarding their games esports scene and League itself. Riot announced their season kick-off plans about a week earlier. Special streams were created for the esports community, and there were fun matchups on Summoners Rift.
Riot also outlined the timeline for the first patch of Season 13 and the release date for everyone’s favorite part of the new year, the League cinematic. It’s safe to say that fans were very disappointed when the video finally dropped.
The two-minute video titled “Brink of Infinity” was a far cry from the amazing champion-based spectacle League fans have grown so fond of over the years. In fact, it didn’t feature a single champion at all. Instead, it just had a butterfly traversing a battle-stricken Summoner’s Rift with a voiceover and homage to some of League’s most iconic esports moments.
It is clear that this video didn’t meet expectations for fans. Riot even took to social media to share some of their feelings with the community. The disappointing cinematic might have been a positive thing. This helped to spur the creators of League into speaking out against their silence towards the community.
The real gem to come from the fallout of Season 13’s cinematic comes from a familiar territory, Reddit.
In light of the cinematic, one League fan, Omnimouse, posted what can only be described as a “budget” version of the video.
This 37 second clip shows a hilarious version of the cinematic illustrated with MS paint. It includes a Riot Games title card that is misspelled and the best MS Paint butterfly known to man. Don’t forget the very random appearance of Lumpy Space Princess from Adventure Time to signify the “Brink of Infinity.” The best part by far is the creator cutting the butterfly out to then swing it around their screen to signify it flying through the air.
The video perfectly tracks the cinematic with audio portions of the actual video playing in the background. It’s a funny, but beautiful way to sum up cinematic in the most cost-effective way.
Check out this hilarious budget 2023 League movie:
The viral video has more than 142,000 upvotes, despite only being available on the League subreddit for one day. The funniest part of the bootleg cinematic is the fact it still manages to encapsulate the true video in such little time with a much “lower” budget.
Although there is still tension around the Season 13 beginning between Riot and Riot fans, this Omnimouse video allows everyone to just have a good time.