It’s hard to describe the impact this one video, and this one song, have made. K/DA is a fictional K-Pop all girl group inside the game League of Legends. Produced by the game’s developer Riot Games, the group appeared last November at the League of Legends World Championship Finals championship at Incheon, South Korea. The whole thing was meant as a promotional to sell new skins for the game.
And people online — even people who don’t play League of Legends — are absolutely eating it up. It’s had a mind-numbing 15 million views to date. The girls are singing in a combination of English and Korean.
Who Is K/DA?
The group, K/DA, consists of four champions: Ahri, Akali, Evelynn and Kai’Sa. Each was given a special backstory that goes with their skins, as well as a real-life counterpart during the opening ceremony at the World Championship. According to the League of Legends website, Ahri and Evelynn are the lead vocalists, Kai’Sa is the main dancer and Akali is the rapper.
Here is that opening ceremony performance. The real flesh and bone singers perform alongside their CG counterparts. If you had any misunderstandings about exactly how big a deal League of Legends is, this video should clear them up.
Who Made the Video?
The video was produced by Fortiche Studio in Paris France. They’ve been around about as long as SCIFI.radio has, and up until recently has been mostly known for making advertising spots and amazing music videos for such bands as Coldplay and Gorillaz. They just recently finished working on Rocket and Groot for Marvel Studios, and they’re moving forward with new projects, including feature film work.
Second Rise
As if this wasn’t amazing enough, the song is now also included as the first song on the playlist in Beat Saber, the VR-only music game from Czech-based indie studio Beat Games (formerly named Hyperbolic Magnetism) in which the player slashes blocks representing musical beats with a pair of energy blades resembling lightsabers from the Star Wars universe.
The song has already found a whole new audience, and what Riot Games has accomplished with League of Legends dwarfs that of nearly every other entertainment title of any genre, except perhaps the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Star Wars.
Yes, we’ve added the song to the SCIFI.radio station play library. It’s certainly earned a spot.
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