Context Ready to clash the German prominent FPS streamers Lara Loft, TriluXe, Sola & Dhalucard? Riot Games GmBH and Biborg collaborated on a Valorant epic interactive face-off on Youtube, inviting players to make the right choice at the right time to defeat their favourite influencers!

Riot Games GmBH turned to various creative agencies to support the launch of Valorant, Riot’s stylish competitive shooter where skills and abilities create opportunities.

Alongside raising awareness versus competitors, the German office was looking for creative ideas that could include videos in an innovative and engaging way while being culturally and locally relevant with the German speaking audience.

Challenges As per Riot Game’s spirit, we had to adopt a welcoming, player-focused and inclusive tone, with personalities able to create a strong connection with the audience.

Furthermore, we had to make sure we provided key insights about the game and its gameplay to our audience through fun, didactic and explanatory videos while staying true to Valorant’s brand DNA: modern, iconic, hypernatural, stylish, mature and playful.

Creative thinking Biborg first undertook a thorough study of the German FPS Gamers, to understand the key incentives when it comes to Tactical Shooter and Solo Competitive Shooter players.

In order to reach the wide community of German players, we were convinced that our creative concept needed to be both tailored for paid media and give voice to a variety of DACH local FPS Players.

We were looking for influencers specialised in today’s most popular FPS games (Fortnite, Apex, Warzone, & also CS:GO, COD, R6 Siege) to showcase an inclusive, diverse and laid-back cast that reflects the spirit of Riot Games and Valorant’s welcoming community.

The content needed to be short and impactful yet immersive and truthful to Valorant’s key features. By mixing gameplay, heart-pounding action and influencers insights, we intended to leave the viewers engaged and inspired by Valorant: Riot’s new FPS game where creativity combines with under pressure performance (precision skills, high stakes, self-expression and teamplay).

Creative Answer From this strategic thinking, came out four creative answers, each of them based on a specific insight. Riot Games DACH cherry-picked one of these, leading to Biborg’s victory.

We know FPS players are especially inquisitive about gameplay features and always prefer to make up their own opinions on a game before getting engaged. We wanted to give them the opportunity to discover Valorant thanks to interactive and smart video assets.

Hacking Youtube’s controls was the perfect way of doing it! Using the J (10’ Review) and L (10’ Forward) keyboard shortcuts on both Mobile & Desktop, we wanted to invite YouTube viewers to play a Valorant character and defeat their favourite local FPS streamer in an interactive face-off. In each video, they had to interact twice, by pressing the right shortcut at the right time, leading them either to victory or defeat.

This Interactive Video Series perfectly answered our different challenges, with a high-value in terms of interactivity (allowing a better understanding of the game’s core proposition value), engagement (high proximity with local streamers) and awareness (surprising and innovative concept in line with Riot’s Brand pillars).

Campaign Production We worked together with talent agency Black Soup, to identify four German streamers from different FPS backgrounds (Lara Loft, TriluXe, Sola, Dhalucard) whose personalities could fit to the concept, while having a strong community that we could bring on-board.

Setting-up a remote shooting with influencers, we created a Hero Trailer targeting the whole DACH FPS Community, inviting them to select the influencer they wanted to face-off.

Depending on their choice, they were led to discover 4 different interactive episodes. Keeping a media and tactical approach, we also recommended to target each competitor's players with the episode (and streamer) that would resonate the most with them.

Each episode needed to reflect the streamer’s personality. We therefore worked collaboratively with each of them to select the Valorant character that would fit them best, but also to create a tailor-made video in terms of scenario, tone and gameplay.

To do so, Biborg worked on a thorough narrative structure for the four episodes that would include all the junctions generated by the viewers’ choices (two per episode). Just like in a gamebook!

Based on the structure and streamers footages, we then handled everything, from the scripting, the acting direction, the gameplay acquisition and the post-production, including Motion Design with 2D and 3D elements to create an epic final video.

If you have some good German speaking skills, you can have a go here!