April Fools’ Dating Sim - VALORANT
Account: VALORANT — Riot Games
The ask: Create an earned media moment during April Fools.
The concept: Announce a dating sim with all the Agents, including a press release, tease assets, in-game events, all with the goal of “fooling” people.
My responsibilites: Concept, creative direction, copywriting
THE GAME
To make this believable, we had to envision what a VALORANT dating sim would really be like.
With a dating sim, we were able to express our characters in a way that competitor titles like Fortnite, Call of Duty, and Rainbow Six: Siege couldn’t.
We teased an upcoming map, Foxtrot, through the island photo in the background. Speculation about the location quickly spread to unowned channels through Reddit, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.
IN-GAME
We extended the campaign in-game, placing “love letters” and drawings around the map with cute drawings teasing gameplay elements of the dating sim.
LOVE LETTERS
The art team put together four cute love letters around the map, reaching VALORANT players who might not be engaged on social.
LOVE RANK
Hardcore competitive ranked players who might not be drawn to dating sims noticed the LOVE rank on every post-match screen right away, sharing it to social media.
THE EARNED MEDIA
We partnered with the PR team to create a press release for the dating sim, complete with quotes from the Executive Producer and Game Director. Dozens of media outlets and YouTube channels ran the quotes, several without realizing the April Fool’s joke, and fans on Twitter and Reddit immediately took notice.
The real payoff was that the community was able to express themselves in a genuine way with this execution, drawing fanart, creating funny reaction memes, and even starting a fan-run dating sim project. Conversation around this execution still comes up, even over a year after it launched. Not bad for a simple April Fools post!
