Apex Legends Gaiden Event Vtubers
A 2022 Clio Entertainment Silver winning campaign.
Apex Legends Season 13 featured The Gaiden Event — a 2-week long activation that reimagined Apex characters in an anime style and featured event-limited cosmetics and game modes.
In an increasingly crowded gaming landscape, and with a 2-week limited time event, we knew we had to do something really special to make the Apex Legends Gaiden Event stand out. Our goal was to promote the launch of the Gaiden Event in a brand new way. We wanted to generate hype and create engagement, not just with the core Apex fanbase, but with a broad, gaming audience.
We wanted to create a unique activation that would celebrate the worlds of anime and gaming, excite core Apex fans, and also introduce Apex to a brand new audience. We wanted to create a unique activation that would celebrate the worlds of anime and gaming, excite core Apex fans, and also introduce Apex to a brand new audience.
In order to do this, we looked to the booming Vtuber community, which has seen exponential growth and interest in the past few years. Melding the worlds of anime, gaming, and streaming together, we developed six Vtuber avatars, based on the anime-inspired in-game skins.
Three Apex Vtuber avatars were based off of fan favorites Octane, Mirage, and Bangalore, and made available to the public to download and stream with. We partnered with a seasoned Vtuber, Vienna, to make a tutorial for the public on how to get started with the downloadable assets we were providing.
To ensure that we were also engaging with the core fanbase, we then leveraged top Apex content creators, iiTzTimmy, NiceWigg, and Bnans, and created bespoke Vtuber avatars that were not only inspired by the in-game anime skins, but were also personalized for each creator. Their Vtubers were truly bespoke as we made sure to combine their personalities with the Apex character they main. The animations and facial expressions were unique to them and their emotes were based on ones their communities frequently used in chat.
iiTzTimmy, NiceWigg, and Bnans then made their Vtuber debut on Code Miko’s stream. As the grand-finale, we hosted a hide and seek match in Apex with our Vtuber creators along with FPS streamers Shroud and Hamb1no so fans could see these avatars in action!
With over 5 million minutes watched on Twitch, over 1.7 million impressions on Twitter, and over 500 thousand views on Youtube we knew this activation was a success and garnered attention from multiple press outlets.
