I'm not one of the 27 million people playing League of Legends each day, but this amazingly action-packed video kind of makes me wish I were.
"A New Dawn" is the free-to-play game's newest cinematic trailer, clocking in at a sprawling six minutes and enjoyable right to the end.
The game pits a hodgepodge assortment of heroes, monsters and mythical creatures against each other in a sort of battle arena. You might think that would make for a chaotic free-for-all with no real narrative, but with subtle storytelling cues and a nonstop tempo of visually stunning combat, this mini-movie ends up being far more compelling than you'd expect.
Cinematic trailers for video games have plenty of detractors, who rightly point out that in-game animation has advanced to the point that it almost seems deceptive to create CGI videos out of whole cloth. But the reality of League of Legends is that watching gameplay can make the game seem baffling and inaccessible for non-players.
But if it means running around a forest chasing armored ninjas and anchor-swinging robots, I'm game.
To see how this epic battle was storyboarded and brought to life, check out the behind-the-scenes clip below.
