Last Sunday, Riot's metal band Pentakill made a special performance at the League of Legends 2021 Mid-Season Showdown Opening Ceremonies and implied that they would be releasing their next album soon. This has prompted some to suspect that Pentakill might be tied to one of Runeterra's upcoming themed events.
Who Is Pentakill?
Like K/DA, Pentakill is a Riot-owned combination of LoL champions and actual musicians. Their name comes from the LoL feat of killing all 5 enemy champions in quick succession. Also like K/DA, there is a series of (badass) LoL skins associated with Pentakill. Pentakill is a metal band; it's "members" are:
- Karthus is the lead vocalist, voiced by Norwegian heavy metal singer/songwriter Jørn Lande.
- Kayle is female/back-up vocalist (Noora Louhimo previously filled this role; TBD if she will continue).
- Mordekaiser is the guitarist.
- Olaf is the drummer (Tommy Lee of Mötley Crüe fame previously filled this role; TBD if he will continue).
- Sona is the keyboardist.
- Yorick is the bassist.
Pentakill has released 2 albums so far: Smite and Ignite (2014) and II: Grasp of the Undying (2017). In March 2020, it was leaked that Riot was working on creating a 3rd album. Then, in last week's press release for 2021 Mid-Season Showdown Opening Ceremonies, Riot announced that Jørn Lande would be performing live as Pentakill singing a new song and hinting at more to come later this year.
Quote From Riot After more than three years in the death realm, PENTAKILL – Riot Games’ virtual heavy metal band – are returning to the stage this Sunday, April 11 at 1pm PT at the historic Los Angeles Greek Theatre.
The band will offer a sneak peek of their upcoming track at the Mid-Season Showdown Opening Ceremonies Presented by Mastercard and kick off a global collaboration with Jackson®, makers of the metal guitars and shred machines.
Jackson® and PENTAKILL will embark on a bespoke and never before seen global collaboration throughout the rest of the year, with unique activations that showcase their instruments’ powerful performance and distinctive style.
This will be PENTAKILL’s first performance following their 2017 chart-topping album “II: Grasp of the Undying”, and after 100+ million collective views of their YouTube playlist and “Mortal Reminder” music video.
The sneak preview of their newest song, which will be released later in 2021, is reimagined specifically for this show and broadcast directly to fans with a few killer surprises.
PENTAKILL, featuring lead vocals by Norweigian rock giant Jørn Lande, will perform in-person at The Greek.
Why We Think This Might Be an Upcoming Event
There are a few compelling reasons to suspect this might be an upcoming event:
- In the Legends of Runeterra Roadmap from Season 2021 Opening Day, Umbrage announced that we would be receiving themed events in May and July.
- It is almost certain that a new album will come out this year and that there will be a promotional LoL event.
- Both of our previous themed events, Spirit Blossom and K/DA All Out, were shared with major LoL events;
- A "Runeterra-only" themed event would be unprecedented. (Note that last month's Empires of the Ascended event was specifically described as just "Expansion Event", not a "Themed Event").
- Although there was some very vocal criticism of the K/DA aesthetics from English-speaking communities, Riot reported that their overall feedback from player surveys indicated the experience was most positively, especially from non-English regions.
This is all still speculation, of course, but it seems to paint a fairly convincing argument. The other themed event we predicted, The Ruination-themed event, was heavily hinted at during that Season 2021 Opening Day presentation but hasn't seen any development since. We suspect this is because Riot wants to tie it along with the launch of the Ruined King RPG game, whose release date is currently unrevealed.
Would you be excited to see a Pentakill-themed event? Let us know below!
Comments
This is my first exposure to Pentakill. The song above is decent. Ultimately, I care only slightly more than I did about K/DA: I'm not opposed to it, and I'm glad to have an event I don't feel the need to spend money on.
It can't be worse than the event of KDA
Rock will always be welcome
The next event is most likely Pool Party, since TFT's next event is going to be Pool Party.
It would also make sense skin-wise. We have a quite a bit of Pool Party (as LoL skinline) champions.
I would love a pool party event so much, its one of my favorite skin lines
I was mostly indifferent to the KDA cards, K-Pop is just not my cup of tea but I did not hate it.
Being a metal fan I do like Pentakill but I would still prefer a lore themed event.
I think a Pentakill event would be pretty cool, though my worries for Pentakill and KDA are the same. None of the champions are in Runeterra yet, so if we are getting cards like we did last time, it would be hard to fit them without making them out of place. The champions themselves don't have enough diversity and they can't fit into all regions, KDA's cards were rather forced like Ahri's Feel The Rush because Akali's Go Get It had already filled the Ionia spot, and then they left two other regions completely without a new card. The cards themselves weren't bad but the name felt like they could've been easily replaced. I just hope they can make a new card that doesn't sound as dumb as Go Hard.
Wait they are creating an album? I thought it was a single, quite hype ngl.