It’s that time of the year when VALORANT surprises the community with an exhilarating track to commemorate the season’s final tournament. But just when Riot Games announced a 24-hour countdown to the launch of 2023’s highly-anticipated Champions anthem, a leak on July 31 offered an auditory glimpse of the track, indulging a part of our anticipation.
Popular VALORANT leaker Mike dug into a Chinese music platform and got hold of a link to the anthem. Despite the DMCA fear, he ended up posting it on Twitter anyway. While the track is out for you to listen to via Soundcloud, the music video is yet to go live.
Curated by Grabbitz and bbno$, the Champions 2023 anthem is officially titled ‘Ticking Away’— and I cannot wait for the time to tick away before the music video’s official release. The leaked audio sounds bland, probably because it’s not the official version; the 15-second video teaser posted on VALORANT’s official Twitter sounds much better, so that’s reassuring for now.
After playing through the leaked track of three minutes and 20 seconds for the first time, I thought it sounded awfully familiar. I ran it back a couple of times to get a deeper idea, only to realize its connection to two of my favorite VALORANT tunes.
VALORANT Champions 2023’s Ticking Away is clearly connected to VCT’s old anthems—’Die For You’ (Champions 2021) and ‘Fire Again’ (Champions 2022)—and I love it.
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The track absorbs its inspirations’ best features, creating magic in the process. It has Grabbitz, a popular EDM star, vocalizing its powerful lyrics, alongside bbno$ adding in his rap magic.
Grabbitz’s soothing yet stirring voice in 2021’s Die For You was the track’s selling point for me. While Ashnikko’s sharp vocals in Fire Again pump me up every time I hear the track, Grabbitz’s return is equally tempting.
Ticking Away is not entirely a tribute to past VCT anthems; there’s also a gripping rap section composed by popular Canadian rapper bbno$ embedded in the song’s bridge.
Even then, Riot’s chaotic and spontaneous approach to music, which is something I and several other players liked, seems to be missing from Ticking Away. It looks like Riot played the safer approach this time, considering how Fire Again upset a section of the community during its release for not being “as good as Die For You.”
While the VALORANT Champions 2023 anthem is definitely making it to my workout playlist, I was hoping for a shiny-new track to freshen up my library. Ticking Away may be the latest VCT song, but its similarity to Fire Again and Die For You makes it prone to becoming stale after a while. That being said, it’ll be my favorite for a while, at the very least.
For those wondering, the official music video, which is expected to feature our favorite VALORANT agents alongside some popular athletes, drops on July 31, today, so keep an eye around.
