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The Call | Season 2022 Cinematic – League of Legends (ft. 2WEI, Louis Leibfried, and Edda Hayes)

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Riot Games kicks off League of Legends’ 2022 season with a four-minute animated declaration of war across three fronts of Runeterra.

Released on January 7, 2022, “The Call” is the cinematic centerpiece of Riot’s Season 2022 Opening Day broadcast, built by animation studio Unit Image under director Ben Hibon. Rather than a single storyline, the short weaves together three separate battles — the Freljord, Shurima, and Mount Targon — each teasing lore threads Riot plans to develop through the year, including the companion short story “Dead of Winter.” The soundtrack, also titled “The Call,” comes from German production duo 2WEI and Mr. Herms, with lead vocals from Louis Leibfried and Edda Hayes.

• The cinematic runs roughly four minutes and was produced by Riot Games in partnership with Unit Image and director Ben Hibon.
• Three storylines anchor the trailer: Sejuani and Olaf’s Winter’s Claw clashing with Volibear’s Ursine in the Freljord, Kai’Sa and Taliyah facing Voidborn horrors in Shurima, and Pantheon (Atreus) ascending Mount Targon to confront the Aspect of War.
• The title track was written by Louis “LoOF” Leibfried, Hermann Schepetkov, Christian Vorländer, and Simon Heeger, with additional vocals from Colm McGuinness and SVRCINA, under supervision of the Riot Music Team.

Three Wars, One Season

“The Call” doesn’t follow one champion’s arc the way earlier Riot cinematics like “Awaken” or “Enemy” did. Instead, it cuts between three separate battlefields that Riot is using to frame the lore going into ranked Season 2022. In the Freljord, Sejuani and Olaf lead the Winter’s Claw across snowbound mountain terrain against Volibear and his Ursine followers — a direct continuation of tension that’s simmered in Freljord storytelling for years. In Shurima, Kai’Sa and Taliyah push into the desert’s depths to meet Voidborn creatures surfacing from the abyss below, tying the trailer to the Void threat that’s loomed over Runeterra’s lore since Kai’Sa’s original release.

The third thread is the most overtly cosmic: on Mount Targon, Pantheon — specifically the current Aspect host, Atreus — climbs toward a confrontation with the Aspect of War and other divine entities. That storyline plays as the clearest embodiment of the cinematic’s mortals-versus-gods framing, positioning a single human willing to die on the mountain against powers that, by design, don’t have to fear death at all.

The Sound Behind the Fight

Riot handed the score to 2WEI and Mr. Herms, the same pairing behind aggressive, choir-and-strings-driven trailer music that’s become a signature sound for big game reveals. Louis Leibfried and Edda Hayes take the lead vocal parts, with Colm McGuinness and SVRCINA layered in for additional vocals. Credited writers on the track are Louis “LoOF” Leibfried, Hermann Schepetkov, Christian Vorländer, and Simon Heeger, with the Riot Music Team overseeing the composition.

For the fallen. For the deserted. For the downtrodden. And for those who will rise again.

That line, delivered over the cinematic’s shifting battle imagery, doubles as Riot’s mission statement for the season — three different corners of the map, three different kinds of loss, and one shared call to keep fighting anyway.

Setting Up the Year of Lore

Riot timed the release to Season 2022’s Opening Day broadcast specifically so the cinematic could sit alongside announcements about ranked changes and upcoming gameplay updates for the year. The tie-in short story “Dead of Winter” extends the Freljord storyline beyond the trailer itself, suggesting Volibear’s conflict with Sejuani’s Winter’s Claw is going to get more attention across 2022 rather than staying a one-off cinematic beat. Fans looking for the broader trailer ecosystem this cinematic sits in can find similar reveal-day rollouts in Riot’s past work, in the same vein as recent game cinematics like the Destiny 2: The Witch Queen weapons and gear trailer or the Apex Legends: Defiance launch trailer, both of which use the same season-opener format to plant story seeds ahead of a new competitive year.

Whichever thread gets picked up first, the Freljord feels like the one with the most immediate payoff — Volibear and the Ursine haven’t been a major focus since his 2020 rework, and pairing him against Sejuani and Olaf in the season’s flagship trailer is about as direct a signal as Riot sends that his story isn’t finished.