For fans of both Dota 2 and League of Legends, there is something very exciting on the horizon. Brazilian YouTuber “Swordz” (real name Bruno Rocha) has cut together a trailer for his upcoming Dota 2 and League of Legends crossover film. Take a sneak peak of what’s to come below as the likes of Garen, Katarina and Vi face off against Tuskarr, Juggernaut, Legion Commander and more.
Known within the Dota 2 scene for his YouTube videos featuring various heroes, Bruno has taken on a rather large challenge with his latest endeavor. The content will be released either way, he promises, but donations via Patreon will allow him to involve music producers, mappers and people experienced with Source Engine’s particle system, helping him to bring the project to another level. We caught up with Bruno to pick his brain...
ESL: There’s clearly a rivalry that exists between the two games. Does that add pressure to the project and to you?
Bruno: It does. Because I’m representing both sides here, I can’t simply make a “hero A kills champion B and champion C kills hero D” movie as that would leave both sides disappointed. It needs to be well thought out. Hopefully we’re working on a story that people will enjoy… we’ll see!
So apparently you can port LoL models into SFM. I bet a Dota vs LoL video would be very big.
— Bruno 'Swordz' Rocha (@SwordzDOTA) February 14, 2014
ESL: What was it that inspired the Dota 2/League of Legends crossover?
Bruno: I know the size of the Dota 2 and League of Legends communities... so, I thought to myself: “If someone did a crossover, it would bring views from both sides... that would be pretty big!"
I guess nobody has ever really done that before because of the little war that both games have going on… But I decided to go against that and ported the League of Legends models into the Source Engine with the hope of doing something that both communities can enjoy. Hopefully that will be the case!
ESL: Would you ever think of making content for other games? Possibly even non-gaming related content?
Bruno: Absolutely! A good example comes from my work: we planned to make 3D trailers for the phone games we make. It never happened, but I would have loved to have tried it out. Non-gaming stuff seems far too extreme/professional for me, but I would definitely enjoy it, given the chance.
ESL: How do you feel about the community response your initial trailer received?
Bruno: Initially, I received several angry messages from my Dota fans… It was all a misunderstanding: people thought I was leaving Dota behind in order to make League of Legends videos. But that’s not the case at all!
I was surprised at the beginning because the League fans liked the idea more than my Dota following did, but after I posted in reply to the angry messages on my Twitter, it evened out a bit and both sides starting liking it equally - the hate kind of stopped. I hope to have both communities spectate and enjoy something together, so I feel I managed to achieve my initial objective with the trailer.
ESL: There’s been a lot of speculation concerning what the film could be about… any hints for us?
Bruno: Hopefully, it will be clearer after the next teasers are released. The first one was done without a script in mind, so it shouldn't be used to speculate what’s going to happen in the film. It was basically a "those two got together and they aren't exactly happy about it!" video.
ESL: How will you measure the success of your film? Will it be a pure numbers game or is there some other motivation/aim here?
Bruno: If I see that Dota players and League players getting along better than the usual, I will know that I succeeded. I always compared this rivalry to the whole "my father is better than your father" thing that kids do. The games are different and aimed towards different people. I absolutely respect all the people that like League, even if I think that Dota is the superior game… What I cannot tolerate, however, are the people who talk bad stuff about other games without having even played them. I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case for 99% of the people who got angry about the idea on Reddit and Twitter.
ESL: So, we know you’re a programmer in the smartphone industry - is film-making something you’re hoping to move towards?
Bruno: Actually, it’s the other way around. I started by animating already existing models and then moved towards modelling/programming because I wanted to make the actual games. In this industry, being an one-man-army can't go wrong, but of course being an expert in one thing is better than knowing a little about a lot of different things! Which is why I never stopped making videos - I’m slowly getting better at it and eventually I got here, starting this big project.
ESL: How long have you been animating and making YouTube videos?
Bruno: I started the Swordz channel in 2007, when I used to make Street Fighter 4 videos. They were cool and got me a few subscribers, but the animation thing really got started in the end of 2012, with the "Playing Rubick" video. It was a very simple video, but got me a lot of views and several subscribers too.
Ever since then, I’ve kept making new videos, each one better than the previous one in some way or another! It's very interesting to see them in order of upload (apart from the Nyx video, which was more of a test)! And then I decided to do the crossover...
ESL: What else can we expect from you in the future?
Bruno: My new fans from League may get disappointed, but my Dota fans will be happy to hear that I do not plan on stopping with the Dota videos! It's what got me subscribers in the first place and it would be very bad to suddenly change that. If I ever started making League videos, I would open a secondary channel for them.
ESL: Any final words for fans of the project? Maybe a few for the naysayers?
Bruno: It will take a long time to finish this, but some day it will be finished. I plan to make new teasers to show that the project is not dead and, if you supported me on Patreon, you will be able to see the progress in the activity feed. I believe that in the end I will have something good to show. As I mentioned before, my objective with this is to make this annoying rivalry less intense, and with the reactions I'm currently getting to the teaser, it seems to be very possible!
Don't forget that you can follow the project's progress on Twitter and, for those who donate via Patreon, there is a live activity feed available. Bruno has said: “If the full video is not the greatest thing ever, I will stream myself eating my pants.” I don’t know about you, but I’m sold.
