The music video itself is based around a game League of Legends, and it's contagious competitive spirit it induces. The movie starts with a musical intro and a view of the earth as the sun is peaking around the top right of it. It then shows how a young gamer, sitting in his room at home playing League of Legends, mirrors the lyrics in the lines "As a child you would wait, and watch from far away, but you always knew that you'd be the one to work while they all play," speaking of the protagonist's desire to take his game above and beyond the casual level of others. "In youth, you'd lay awake at night and scheme of all the things that you would change, but it was just a dream."
A dream yes, but a dream followed and taken hold of. The video then takes us into a different realm where shooting beams of light join together as they twist through great stone megaliths carved in the likeness of many of the characters of League of Legends. Though it starts out as only one light (player) it is quickly joined by two, and then four until there are five beams (symbolic of the five man teams necessary to play). All the while, the chorus cries, "here we are, don't turn away, now we are the warriors who built this town. Here we are don't turn away, now we are the warriors who built this town from dust."
The lyrics and the imagery seem to imply the player going through a wasteland of combat and tribulations, steadily gaining allies that move with them, navigating the ominous terrain in the process. This seems to be confirmed as the chorus ends and the scene wipes to a team of five players, including the main protagonist screaming in victory at a LAN tournament.
The next verse starts immediately with, "The time will come when you will have to rise above the best and prove yourself your spirit never dies." The scene pans over to the opposing "red" team where the second protagonist, a young man in a hoodie, taps his fingers and feet irritabley before shoving himself away from the desk in frustration. As the camera circle hims, he looks to his hands in despair as the lights of the building sequentially vanish above him, leaving him in darkness.
"Farewell, I've gone to take my throne above. But don't weep for me, 'cause this will be the labor of my love." Hoodie looks across the screen at the protagonist (whom I will call Hat, since he wears a baseball cap), only his eyes visible, challenging, as if silently saying he expects him to keep on fighting, despite the loss. Perhaps hoping so. Hoodie can only look down at his hands as the tremble. He clenches his fists as a crystal tears fly from his eyes.
"Here we are don't turn away, now we are the warriors who built this town..." The crystals fly into a small black sphere of energy between Hoodie's hands, pulsing as his hands shake, implying that he might be training his magical (gaming) prowess. The camera zooms into the sphere and reveals a great room divided by red and blue light. On stage, Hoodie and his team wave to the crowd in front of a great white TV screen, casting silhouettes over their forms. The camera moves forward, passing by several scenes showing the reactions from the red and blue teams as they sustain victories and losses. "Here we are, don't turn away, now we are the warriors who built this town from dust."
At the last word, the camera zooms through lines and lines of computer towers, glowing in their neon light until it comes out of a break between them, revealing a massive stadium in the center of a sprawling city. A guitar solo plays as five golden lights spring from the buildings and into the sky, trailed by five similarly glowing blue lights. They spin and weave around each other as they pierce the clouds, lightning crackling between them, sending shadowed forms of League of Legend characters dueling behind the veil of the clouds for brief seconds.
All ten lights ascend suddenly, stretching into the stratosphere above the clouds where they return to their original human forms, indicating the lights were players after all. They float together above the city for several seconds, gazing down at it from above. "Here we are don't turn away, now..." As one they dive back down, resuming as shooting beams of light as they twist and crash back down into a stadium in a great blast of light.. "...we are the warriors who built this town."
"Here we are don't turn away, now..." Hat stands and adjusts his cap, looking out at something unseen while the camera pans around the many different players as they prepare themselves, ending with a zoom in on Hoodie as he turns from looking behind to looking out at the tens of thousands of people in the stadium before them. "...we are the warriors who built this town from dust."
The song ends with the crowd cheering, waving signs and throwing their hands in the air as both teams face off against each other, a great golden chalice bearing the Game's name rising into the air between them. Hat's eyes widen as the chalice is reflected in them. The final shot is of the sun just peaking around the corner of the earth, opposite side of where it had in the beginning.
The narrative of the movie and the song (both made specifically for League of Legends I might add) is to show a form of progression in their gaming careers as they go from being ordinary players into being the top of their class, the best in the game's history. It's also an interesting narrative on how one's spirit should be indomitable. Hoodie's loss to Hat at the start of the movie culminates in his training and strive to get better and have another shot at him, ending with a battle before tens of thousands of people for the whole world to see. The video and song, when put together are an inspiring message to young, new players that in the game of League of Legends, there will be loses and you will have to deal with them, But if you dedicate yourselves, you can strive for and reach the top. The song and video are inspirational, driving players to strive harder and eventually "ascend" beyond their peers to compete with the best in the world. The movie makes the players out to be otherworldly, yet tangible, as if their power was something you could reach out, grasp, and take for yourself.
As a League of Legends player, this movie spoke to me in volumes the first time I saw it, and it still does to this day inspire me to perform better and to strive for greater things. Maybe one day I could be Hat or Hoodie, standing in front of a crowd of thousands, and on camera from millions to watch live. One day maybe... One day...
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