Wild Rift China deletes weird AI video after fan backlash

A low-effort AI video was posted to the official League of Legends: Wild Rift account on Weibo to celebrate the game's third anniversary in China, and it didn’t go well. The video was deleted shortly after it was uploaded, but not before fans noticed its bizarre visuals and strange animation. Riot's executive producer for Wild Rift, David Xu, later posted a public statement on X saying the video "frankly, did not hit the mark" and admitted the team needs to do better when it comes to content quality.

The video showed off distorted versions of League of Legends characters like Jinx and Seraphine in a surreal crowd scene that looked like it came from a broken cutscene generator. The whole thing was reportedly made by a third-party AI studio and included mistakes like spelling errors, weird weapon designs, and character models that didn’t follow any consistent design. Fans noticed instantly and posted screenshots across Reddit and X, comparing the work to rejected AI experiments and mocking the sloppy results.

The statement from David Xu was short but clear:

"Hey folks, yesterday we posted a creator-made video on our official Weibo channel that, frankly, did not hit the mark. When we post content on our official channels, it's on us to maintain a high quality bar and be clear about where it came from. Thank you for all the feedback, we can and will do better."

The video was meant to mark Wild Rift’s third anniversary in China, which launched later than other regions. Instead, it ended up being a bad example of what can go wrong when AI is used without proper quality checks. It was later confirmed that the video came from a company called 异类-Outliers, which calls itself an “AI visual production” team. Their Douyin account (China’s version of TikTok) shows similar content, including a janky attempt at a live-action Evangelion video.

Specific problems in the Wild Rift clip included characters with glitchy tattoos, weapons that kept changing shape, floating lights that looked like melting clocks, and a melting “3rd anniversary” logo with a missing letter. One shot even showed Aurora’s tail coming out of the middle of her back. The animation was paired with a generic music track and visuals that some fans said looked similar to Sony’s recent KPop-inspired Demon Hunters project.

The internet didn’t let it slide. Posts comparing the video to “AI slop” spread quickly, and fans were quick to point out that Riot has spent hundreds of millions on high-quality animation in the past. The most obvious example is Arcane, which reportedly cost over $250 million and received worldwide praise for its visuals and storytelling. Fans are still waiting for Arcane season two, and many used this AI mess as a chance to criticize Riot’s priorities.

There’s also frustration that a company with Riot’s resources chose to post something this cheap-looking on an official channel. Some of the blame may fall on Tencent, Riot’s parent company in China, especially when it comes to managing local content pipelines. But the core complaint is the same: the video was bad, and it got posted anyway.

This isn’t the first time fans have called out companies for cutting corners with AI. Microsoft, Blizzard, and others have also been accused of using AI-generated content instead of hiring artists. In the Wild Rift case, it just happened to be more obvious than usual. While AI art tools keep getting better, situations like this show how quickly public trust can collapse when shortcuts are used on big-name projects.

The post being deleted doesn’t erase it from the internet, and screenshots and clips are still floating around. It’s likely that Riot will try to avoid a repeat of this situation going forward. But the damage is done—what was supposed to be a celebration turned into an example of how not to use AI in gaming content.