Popular video game and esport League of Legends has made great strides in recent years to broaden its reach throughout the entertainment mainstream. Its largest endeavor as of late has been through the virtual-reality pop group K/DA, which launched in 2018 for the League of Legends World Championship event. While Riot Games has explored other musical avenues since, namely with the creation of the group True Damage for the 2019 World Championship, K/DA has returned to prominence again in August 2020 after the creation of social media accounts promoting the group on Twitter and Instagram.
K/DA, in order to promote their upcoming EP, released a promotional single Aug. 28 titled “The Baddest.” This single featured a new line-up for the group; while the League characters remained the same, with Ahri, Akali, Evelynn and Kai’Sa as the League champions involved, new musical artists provided the voices. While K-pop group (G)I-DLE’s Miyeon and Soyeon returned to voice Ahri and Akali respectively, Western artists Bea Miller and Wolftyla filled the shoes of Evelynn and Kai’Sa for the first time. At first, this left fans confused as to what happened between Riot Games, Madison Beer and Jaira Burns, who were Evelynn and Kai’Sa back in 2018.
However, while releasing new teasers for their EP “All Out,” Riot Games revealed that K/DA will have a changing line-up of singers involved in each song. Beer and Burns were confirmed to return to K/DA for other songs, and new artists were confirmed to collaborate with the video game girl group as well. Among these new artists are Lexie Liu, Kim Petras, Aluna, Bekuh Boom, Annika Wells and K-pop group TWICE. Each song on the EP will use a different arrangement of singers, with no two songs sharing the same artist line-up.
K/DA released yet another song to promote their EP, dropping the track “MORE” Wednesday, Oct. 28 in a worldwide premiere exclusively on YouTube. Along with this track, Riot Games released a music video to accompany it, with computer-animated models of the League characters both singing along to and dancing to the song. While K/DA consists of four characters, this song included a collaboration with a new League champion, Seraphine.
Seraphine was first revealed as a Twitter account, @seradotwav, and throughout the teaser period leading up to the release of “MORE.” K/DA revealed the collaboration with Seraphine that then served as Seraphine’s official announcement as a new League champion. Seraphine will be the game’s 152nd playable champion, and is rumored to be released near the 2020 World Championship event.
Alongside K/DA’s musical endeavors and Seraphine’s inclusion to the game, Riot Games is also using this girl group as a way to market in-game elements to fans. In League, each character has customizable ‘skins,’ which allows players to change the outfits of the champion they are controlling. Players can buy Ahri, Akali, Evelynn and Kai’Sa’s K/DA skins to use during the game. Those four characters have multiple skins that match their appearances in the K/DA music videos, as well as a few alternative “Prestige Editions” of those outfits. Seraphine will also have skins that match her guest appearance in K/DA’s song “MORE.” Players who wish to promote or represent K/DA’s music in League can use these skins as they play.
K/DA’s debut EP “All Out” is expected to release Friday, Nov. 6. K/DA is also slated to perform at the 2020 World Championship Finals, to be held Saturday, Oct. 31.
