Wild Rift & League of Legends: Star Guardian
01
Return to Valoran City
The Star Guardian skin line is one of League of Legends’ most popular skin lines, and a fan-favorite Summer Event. Inspired by magical girl anime, the campaign centers around a group of badass cosmic warriors chosen by fate to protect the light of the stars. They also happen to be high school students who are destined to burn bright, at the risk of collapsing as furiously as they burn.
The objective was to bring an anime summer to life through in-depth world building experiences. Releases included everything from Japanese manga, video games, toys, and deep cuts into Otaku culture.
This first section covers the higher-level illustration and artwork that helped inspire shape the campaigns direction.
This required a massive, cross-team collaboration with a heavy emphasis on the lore.
Read more on the Star Guardian Universe:
https://starguardian.riotgames.com/en-us/timeline/
https://universe.leagueoflegends.com/en_US/comic/star-guardian
https://universe.leagueoflegends.com/en_US/star-guardian/
↳ Campaign Moment / Event x Artwork
02
Vlogs & Karaoke
To introduce a global audience to Japanese anime culture, we created a narrative around one particular Star Guardian: Orianna – a former cyborg who was learning how her fellow Star Guardian friends had fun, especially the nuances of high school.
Throughout summer, we released a series of Vogs featuring the other Star Guardians teaching Orianna different fun activities related to Japanese anime culture, starting with Karaoke – which of course was a singalong to the infamous summer Star Guardian theme, Everything Goes On by Porter Robinson.
Agency
BBH Singapore
↳ Video Content x Storytelling
03
Manga Bookstore & Art
We then introduced Orianna to the world of Manga books, by partnering with iconic artists like Yoshitaka Amano (Final Fantasy concept artist), Hiro Mashima (Rave Master & Fairy Tail), and many more to reimagine the Star Guardian cast as titles and cover art.
Fans also had a chance to submit their own Manga covers for a chance to be featured alongside their favorite artists.
Agency
BBH Singapore
↳ Interactive Experience
04
Trading Cards
Lastly, we showed Orianna all the hype around Japanese Trading Card Games (TCG) and the allure of “cracking packs”. For this execution we wanted to give some love to those small creatures that accompany our heroes, so the Star Guardian’s Familiars (pets) got a chance to shine as collectible trading cards.
Our A-team of partners developed an Instagram Filter that incentivizes fans to play over time, requiring you to come back to the experience multiple times to unlock new cards. Every hour provides a chance to open another pack and eventually complete the collection.
There are 37 total cards to collect, two of which are the ‘ultra rares’ which are date-gated to be revealed after 4 days. The custom rarity algorithm ensures users, on average, are able to collect all base cards within 25 pack openings.
The team overcame many hurdles working around Meta’s modest 4MB file size limit, yet maintained high-resolution visuals and motion. Various techniques were explored from creating shapes with codes, using rendered data to create effects that don’t eat away at data. This innovative, potentially unprecedented approach allowed us to essentially build a mini-microsite (yes, mini-micro) within a filter that remembers where you left off rather than a one-time interaction.
Try it on mobile here: https://www.instagram.com/ar/600777795001241
There was also a limited run of physical cards.
Agency
↳ Interactive Experience
