Linkin Park to perform League of Legends World Championship anthem

American rock band Linkin Park will perform the 2024 League of Legends World Championship anthem.

Game developer Riot Games recently confirmed the news in a post following weeks of speculation surrounding the band’s potential involvement.

Linkin Park, famous for songs such as ‘In the End’ and ‘Numb’, recently returned from a seven-year hiatus following the 2017 passing of its former frontman Chester Bennington. After making its comeback with new lead singer Emily Armstrong, a number of social media posts from the band received comments from official LoLEsports social media accounts containing a golden crown emoji.

While this alone was enough to fuel speculation, the released tracklist of the band’s upcoming album ‘From Zero’ included a song titled ‘Heavy Is the Crown’, and this was perceived as a link to the replies from the LoLEsports accounts. Additionally, much of the promotion material for the World Championships included crown imagery.

Now the song has been confirmed as the official anthem and is set to be released on Wednesday 25th at 4:00 a.m. BST. The track will feature heavily throughout the tournament and a live performance can be expected at the event’s grand final.

Previous artists to perform League of Legends World Championship anthems include Lil Nas X, Imagine Dragons, The Glitch Mob, and, most recently, K-pop outfit NewJeans. Each year, the official anthem is typically performed live at the World Championship final. This year’s final will take place in London’s O2 Arena on Saturday, November 2nd.

Ahead of the tournament, Riot Games recently announced a new global power rankings system, a partnership with Amazon Web Services to rank all partnered League of Legends teams. It also made a number of changes to the game’s ecosystem, announcing a newly updated tier-two Americas ecosystem as well as its intent to ‘revamp’ the Oceania circuit.