Wild Rift producer responds to backlash over alleged AI anniversary video posted to Weibo

Riot Games has responded to criticism surrounding a controversial anniversary video for League of Legends: Wild Rift, which was uploaded to the game’s official Weibo account and widely circulated online due to its apparent use of artificial intelligence and visual inconsistencies.

The video, meant to celebrate the mobile game’s third anniversary, featured popular characters such as Jinx, Yasuo and Seraphine performing at a fictional concert.

However, the visuals quickly drew scrutiny for their low quality, including unusual facial animations, glitchy movement, and awkward design elements, such as the misspelling of “anniversary” as “aniversary” and a distorted “3rd” logo.

Fans on platforms like Reddit and Twitter pointed to several hallmarks of AI-generated content, including inconsistent object rendering, unnatural character movement, and vague lyrics like “Can we turn up the blower higher,” which some attributed to mistranslation or generative language models.

Wild Rift executive producer David Xu acknowledged the backlash in a post on Weibo. “Yesterday we posted a creator-made video on our official Weibo channel that, frankly, did not hit the mark,” Xu wrote.

“When we post content on our official channels, it’s on us to maintain a high-quality bar and be clear about where it came from. Thank you for all the feedback, we can and will do better.”

Xu did not confirm whether the video was AI-generated but indicated it originated from an external creator. Reports suggest the video may have come from a group called Outliers (异类), known for AI-based aesthetic content.

Riot has since removed the video from Weibo.