The League of Legends championship is right around the corner, and we are expecting some amazing things. The most recent news centers around alleged Linkin Park and Riot Games collaboration, which will most likely result in a new 2024 Worlds Anthem. Today we are gonna cover this case by going over all the hints and speculations and determine if these rumors are based in reality!
The Hints We Have
5th September marked a huge day for the fans of Linkin Park, as the band had just announced their comeback, 7 years later after Chester’s unfortunate passing. The band has onboarded two new members the singer Emily Armstrong, who will be the lead vocalist alongside Mike Shinoda, and the drummer Colin Brittain.
The band has also announced a new album “From Zero”, which is set to release in roughly a month from now, on November 15th. The album includes a song titled “Heavy is the Crown” which laid itself out as the strongest hint for the potential collaboration.
This clue was further cemented after the official X account for League of Legends commented a crown emoji on a recent Linkin Park post. What connects all this is Riot’s announcement for the upcoming Worlds Viego skin, in which he is pictured with a crown.
We also have some other official Riot announcements, which revealed the release date for the Anthem (Sep 24). The announcement was also illustrated with a graphic render of a crown, further pointing us toward our original suspicions.
OKAAAAYYYYYY pic.twitter.com/y5e0B87Zg5
— G2 League of Legends (@G2League) September 9, 2024
Previous Associations
The relationship between Riot Games and Linkin Park has spanned for a long time. The most recent public interaction was Mike Shinoda’s appearance at the Arcane premiere, which implies his involvement in the community.
Furthermore, it’s also known that Linkin Park’s parent company “Machine Shop Ventures” has co-owned a pro-League of Legends team Immortals which could serve to illuminate our case even further.
Additional Speculations
The whole ordeal is marked by additional speculations from the community. One strong suspicion is that Riot will honor their long-standing tradition, which includes featuring the previous Worlds champions. This would imply a new Faker appearance in the video montage for the song. This would make perfect sense, as it would align with Riot’s intention of promoting their recently released Immortalized Ahri skin.
Previous Worlds Songs
One of the best things that came out of the League of Legends universe is the original songs made for the yearly Worlds occasion. We have seen some of the greatest features that resulted in inspiring everlasting songs, such as The Warrior by Imagine Dragons. In light of that, we are gonna list all the songs released all the way back from 2014 to now!
- 2014 – Warriors by Imagine Dragons
- 2015 – Worlds Collide by Nicky Taylor
- 2016 – Ignite by Zedd
- 2017 – Legends Never Die by Against the Current & Chrissy Constanza
- 2018 – Rise by The Glitch Mob, Mako, and The Word Alive
- 2019 – Phoenix by Cailin Russo and Chrissy Constanza
- 2020 – Take Over by Jeremy McKinnon, Max and Henry
- 2021 – Burn It All Down by Riot Music Team ft. PVRIS
- 2022 – Lil Nas X – STAR WALKIN’
- 2023 – GODS ft. NewJeans (뉴진스)
In Conclusion
From everything we could gather, the Riot Games and Linkin Park partnership seems inevitable. The most likely outcome of this collaboration would be a worlds song, however, it might be possible that we are gonna get a live Worlds performance featuring Linkin Park. Some fans theorize that this might also lead to a new Arcane song release, which could also be the case. Anyhow, from where we stand, it does seem like something great is in the works, and we are all excited for what is to come!