Living like Giants: 'League of Legends' from the screen to the stage

League of Legends has become one of the most popular electronic sports video games of the last few years. With this, the musical practices surrounding it have assumed increasing power and relevance, materializing in configurations that extend beyond the field of online gaming. Along with the possibilities offered by using CGI (Comput-er-Generated Imagery) technologies on stage, every year video game developer Riot Games opens the World Championships with a musicalized show, designed to formalize the competitive event. This article contextualizes and reviews the audiovisual opening ceremony of the 2019 World Final through an analysis of its three pieces: Awaken, Giants and Phoenix. The show’s role as a warm-up to the main event brings to light a structure akin to the opening of a ritual, with specific objectives, enabling the event to be recast in terms of the extra-ordinary. Music is presented as a binding element, which highlights the importance of the sound in and for the competition. Finally, the scope of the ritual is enhanced beyond the physical environment in which it takes place thanks to a live broadcast. This allows for the participation of a much larger audience than would fit in the stands of a stadium. In this way, the ritual and its music allow video game fans to witness and experience the event in a delocalized way.