Artist drops unreleased Worlds song in contract breach

British artist Simon Rosenfeld has pulled back the curtain on Riot Games’ music production pipeline by dropping an unreleased Worlds song that hadn’t made the cut.

A British musical artist has released a song that he claims was meant to be the 2021 Worlds anthem, before being replaced by higher-profile group PVRIS in 2021 and Lil Nas X in 2022. The artist, Simon Rosenfeld, says that he was contacted by Riot to produce the 2021 Worlds anthem before Riot Games decided to go with PVRIS’ offering with “Burn It Down”.

Simon Rosenfeld drops unreleased Worlds song “Heroes”

Rosenfeld spoke with PCGamesN to explain how it got to the point of him releasing a shelved Worlds anthem a year after it was meant to see the light of day. According to Rosenfeld, Riot Games approached him to produce the 2021 World Championship song but had the option not use the song should situations change. Rosenfeld produced a swelling anthem by the title of “Heroes”, but it was ultimately abandoned by Riot. LoL’s developer would eventually decide to publish PVRIS’ Worlds anthem instead, last year’s “Burn It Down”, and Lil Nas X’s “Star Walkin'” the next year. To hear the song for yourself, check out Rosenfeld’s released version.

After seeing Burn It Down released in 2021, and Star Walkin’ in 2022, Rosenfeld assumed that Heroes was effectively dead in the water and went to release it himself. However, when Rosenfeld first tried to publish the song on Soundcloud, he was met with a notice that the song he was trying to publish was actually owned by WLTD Entertainment, a company that Rosenfeld had created and was still sole owner of.

Rosenfeld also acknowledges that he was paid for his efforts and that releasing the song on his own is a clear breach of contract. However, this doesn’t seem to bother Rosenfeld, who told PCGamesN that he released the song anyway because it was “a banger.”

How Riot Games will choose to respond to this breach of contract has yet to be seen, but it can be assumed the massive developer isn’t happy with Rosenfeld’s choice.