True Damage Return After Seven Years With ‘Know My Name,’ a Drill-Inspired Worlds Anthem

Seven years after “GIANTS,” League of Legends’ virtual rap group finally has a follow-up, and Riot Games gave it the biggest stage it has. “Know My Name,” out Thursday (Oct. 8) with a video on League of Legends’ YouTube channel, is the official anthem of the 2026 World Championship. It’s the 13th Worlds anthem, and the first one Riot has handed to one of its own virtual acts, Inven Global reports.

True Damage are five of the game’s champions, voiced by real artists. SOYEON of i-dle returns as Akali, the role she has played in both True Damage and K/DA. Grammy-winning R&B singer Coco Jones takes over Senna from Keke Palmer, Chicago rapper Vic Mensa raps as Ekko, and the Mexican singer-songwriter Sofía Reyes sings and raps as Qiyana. Yasuo, as ever, is the DJ and producer.

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“GIANTS” borrowed from K-pop and traditional Spanish music. “Know My Name” is built for New York, which hosts this year’s final. “Drill was a really big inspiration for us this time around,” Alex Shahmiri, who helped shape the song’s musical direction at Riot, told NME. The track keeps drill’s darker tones, he explained, then lifts them into an arena-sized esports sound with “a live drumline and brass.” Reyes said the track “brought out a fiery side of me that you don’t usually hear in my music.”

League of Legends teased the video with one line:

“Him” is Faker. The video retells the T1 star’s career, from his world titles in 2013, 2015 and 2016 through years without the trophy, to the three-peat he completed last year by beating KT Rolster 3-2 in the final, the sixth title of his career, per Inven Global. Watch it below.

Know My Name ft. True Damage (Official Music Video) | League of Legends Worlds 2026 AnthemLeague of Legends · Watch on YouTube ↗

Worlds anthems have a strong track record. Imagine Dragons made the first, “Warriors,” in 2014, and NewJeans and Linkin Park have had the job since. True Damage’s own debut is still going: Riot says “GIANTS” has passed 230 million streams across platforms. Riot Games Music, which has also released songs by the virtual K-pop group K/DA and the metal band Pentakill, says its catalog of more than 1,500 songs has topped 16 billion streams.

Maria Egan, Riot’s global head of music and events, said the host city settled it. “Much like our host city, True Damage has always been about bringing together distinct voices, styles, and cultures to create something unique and bigger than the sum of its parts,” she said in the announcement. Riot is committed to the bit, too: in an in-character interview with The FADER, Ekko remembers people “asking me for autographs at the bodega” after “GIANTS” and thanks Jalen Brunson for “putting the Knicks back on top.”

Riot has made a habit of this. Its Valorant tournaments have featured artists from XG and Ashnikko to KATSEYE, and Shahmiri knows the reputation: players love Riot’s music “to the point that it’s a joke that Riot’s really a music company fronting as a games company,” he told NME.

Worlds starts with the Play-In stage in Los Angeles on Oct. 15, then moves to Allen, Texas, for the Swiss and knockout stages. True Damage perform “Know My Name” live at the opening ceremony for the final at Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Nov. 14.