Riot Games | VALORANT Esports: VCT LOCK//IN 2023

VAMO, LOCK//IN.

Fans, players, and pros alike are queued up and ready to bring the heat back into the game. Gather your squad. Who will you rep? Get ready for the round start of VCT 2023.

For the first event of the 2023 season, VCT LOCK//IN was an opportunity to kick off the fresh reboot of the VALORANT Champions Tour with a bang. Following the team franchising and roster mania of 2022, LOCK//IN featured an unprecedented number of 32 competing teams from three partnered International Leagues and was the first time that fans could see these new lineups compete on a global stage.

Creative Strategy

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Audience Avatars: The film recreated the experience and excitement of queuing up in VALORANT, a ritual process that resonates with players and pros alike. Featuring a diverse squad of five friends, each representative of our global audience, we follow their journey as they enter the server, transforming into their favorite agents along the way.

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Lock In: To select an agent to play in-game, VALORANT players go through the “Lock In” process. With a reworked game interface that included 32 franchised teams across the three international leagues, each player-turned-agent cycled through to choose a team to root for in the competition.

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Representing Brazil: LOCK//IN was VALORANT’s first global event in Brazil, which presented the opportunity to authentically infuse the location and its culture into the core of our campaign. We were able to create a vibrant sonic and visual landscape for the film, ranging from remixing VALORANT’s “Ignition” with the Brazilian track “Boa Noite” – featuring a traditional chant from Bahia, which the game’s Brazilian agent, Raze, hails from – to recreating São Paulo for the closing sequence, including the tournament’s venue Ginásio do Ibirapuera.

Features Content

Across four critical beats of the competition, we produced keystone content to track the narrative arcs of the event – bracket introductions, semifinals, and grand finals – as well as 32 “Meet The Teams” videos.

We contextualized VALORANT Esports and the LOCK//IN event through the lens of the community pride and social camaraderie at the core of Brazil's sports culture, which allowed us to drive hype and to show the rest of the world how passionate and energized the fanbase is there.

Trophy

We took inspiration from the teams by constructing a trophy on a hexagonal base with six flanks holding up the VCT Spark, representing the five players and coach that would eventually lift the award at the conclusion of the tournament’s Grand Finals.

In-Game Content

LOCK//IN In-Game Capsule Collection

With the kickoff of international leagues, players had the opportunity to represent their regional pride in-game with three league inspired VALORANT melees, player cards, and an exclusive Brazilian-inspired spray.

In Game Homepage Visualizer

LOCK//IN Merch Collection

Merging Brazilian design and textiles with game IP and agent abilities, we created a line of merch exclusive for the event inspired by streetwear and youth culture, that was both fashion forward and wearable day-to-day. For the shoot, we mimicked the 5-stack team from the film, casting a mixture of traditional models, influencers and two Brazilian pro players from the 2022 championship winning team, LOUD.