Every year leading up to Worlds, the fans are met by the coveted Worlds Anthem, a hype song to stir up all our inner dreams and desires of being a pro and fighting to win the biggest esports tournament of the year. The song inspires. It places mere fans in the middle of it all. WE are the Warriors, not just them, WE!

Well, every year until this year. For an undisclosed reason, the 2019 Worlds Anthem wasn't released before Worlds, and instead was leaked on the last day of play-ins after it had popped up in the Apple Store and on some non-Riot YouTube channels. Riot immediately released their video, but the hype of it all was left behind.

Lackluster Anthem

Whether the hype was lost because it was late, just the weird timing after Play-Ins, the leaks, the rush to release after the leaks, or simply the song itself, we'll never know. In reality, it's likely a combination of all those factors. The song was late, leaked, and released by Riot somewhat unofficially. 

There was no big announcement. It wasn't this loud shriek shattering the long silence of "bootcamping in Korea" like normal. The song historically releases when the people are at their hungriest, but this time Worlds had already begun. 

One final complaint fans are splattering across their social media feeds is that the song itself was dull, slow, lacked hype itself. Regardless of the release, listeners seem to be bored. That may be due to the fact that the version of the song found in the YouTube video and Spotify is either not mixed correctly or got compressed.

A Better Mix

Before a song is released, it is mixed, simply meaning the sound levels are optimized between low, medium, and high, and everything is polished. But someone must've forgotten to insert the Final-FinalEdit.mp4 to the YouTube video and Spotify, instead just releasing the FinalEdit.mp4, which definitely wasn't finished quite yet.

Jokes aside, the version featured on Apple Music and Soundcloud boasts much higher quality. The bass has more depth, the song is punchier, and the vocals are much more clear. It's possible that they are the same mix and YouTube and Spotify's compression flattened the song, but it's definitely not the same listening experience. 

This complete mix really escalates as it builds towards the end of the song, and is capable of delivering on some of that missing hype that we are so used to from the Worlds Anthems. Whether or not it's as strong as Rise, Warriors, and Legends Never Die is up to you. But when you do listen, be sure to load up SoundCloud, not Spotify or YouTube.

And let this be a gentle note of positivity to all the "SoundCloud rappers" out there, at least you aren't a YouTube rapper.