Riot Games’ virtual rock group Pentakill are returning after a four-year hiatus, with a new song being shown off this weekend.
Pentakill will perform a preview of an upcoming track at the Mid-Season Showdown opening ceremony presented by Mastercard on Sunday April 11th at the LA Greek Theatre from 8pm GMT. Pentakill will perform ‘in person’, including Norweigian rock giant Jørn Land as lead vocalist, Riot announced on the LoL Esports website.
Riot has promised ‘a few killer surprises’ at the event this weekend and said the song in question has been reimagined specifically for the Mid-Season Showdown.
League of Legends developer Riot Games has also partnered with Jackson Guitars to work on the Pentakill project, and this collaboration will feature ‘unique activations’ for the remainder of 2021. Jackson has become the first official guitar partner of the North American LCS.
Pentakill currently have two metal albums – Smite and Ignite which launched in 2014 and II: Grasp of the Undying which arrived in 2017. They have amassed more than 100m collective views on YouTube, including 52m views of the Mortal Reminder music video.
League of Legends can expect more Pentakill in-game champion skins to be released this year. The current Pentakill-themed champions include Yorick, Karthas, Sona, Olaf, Mordekaiser and Kayle (pictured), all of which have their own Pentakill skins.
PENTAKAYLE: UK LoL community reacts to Pentakill Kayle skin
It’s likely a Pentakill 3 album will release this year. While this hasn’t been confirmed, Riot has mentioned it in the past by Riot composer Tre Watson here and by Riot co-founder Marc Merrill to Esports News UK here.
Riot Games has other virtual music groups in its League of Legends stable, including hip-hop group True Damage and pop band K/DA.
K/DA launched the All Out EP late last year.
Riot has partnerships with Warner Music and Universal Music Group. The developer has put music at the forefront of a lot of its marketing over the years, partnering with artists such as Imagine Dragons to produce and perform songs. Each year a new track is specifically made to promote the LoL World Championships, for example.
There won’t be a live audience at the event this weekend – only essential staff and talent will be on-site at the Greek Theatre.
The opening ceremonies presented by Mastercard will take place from 8pm GMT on twitch.tv/lcs, youtube.com/lcs and lolesports.com.
UPDATE (April 12th 2021): Here’s the opening ceremony:
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Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
