Riot Games’ Virtual Boyband Heartsteel Is Too Real

These days, everything tends to be virtual, including musical experiences.

Riot Games’ virtual boyband Heartsteel, made up of League of Legends characters, isn’t the first of its kind, and there are many other musicians in the past that were purely virtual. Arguably, virtual musicians ought to pay homage to Vocaloids for (if not inventing, at least popularizing) the concept of virtual people creating real music.

Riot Games also produced K/DA sometime in 2018, a virtual pop girl group composed of several Runeterra champions. K/DA has a massive following and broke charts. Rumor has it that many fans await their comeback.

But even K/DA wasn’t as “real” or “alive” during their promotions as the six-member virtual boyband, Heartsteel.

This isn’t to say that K/DA doesn’t have simps themselves, but Hearsteel gives people so much material that makes them feel like real people. Visit the official Riot Games Music Twitter account, and anybody can get a grasp of each member’s personality and everyday routine. Sett loves plushies despite being a chronic gym rat, K’Sante is also a gym rat but he’s also extremely fashionable. Aphelios doesn’t talk much yet he’s chaotic in his own quiet way, Kayn on the other hand is outwardly chaotic and he washes everybody’s dishes. Ezreal loves taking photos to the point of running out of phone storage, and Yone is the last brain cell of the group that’s holding everybody together. This is information you can easily glean from the official Twitter account.

What’s more, the band members regularly talk to each other on Twitter and fans often find a lot of laughs in their interactions. It gives a clear dynamic of the band’s relationship with each other, making them feel realistic. An aspect that makes these five members feel like real-life people is their regular interaction with fans. They even like and retweet fanart of the band on Twitter, and some fans hope to be noticed by the boys.

This isn’t the first time Riot tried to make one of their fictional characters “come to life.” Their first attempt was with Seraphine, who had a hyperrealistic promotion. She had an active Instagram and Twitter account, until she faced controversy for being “too real.” People didn’t like that she felt like a real person with real mental health struggles. This line hasn’t been crossed by Heartsteel—yet. It’s really too soon to say where this is all headed. There’s hope that Riot Games will be careful with the way they handle the boys, considering that they had a lot to learn from Seraphine’s issue.

(featured image: GQ Korea)