True Damage rise from the ashes with a new look for every member in League of Legends

Seven years after GIANTS turned one of Riot Games’ virtual music experiments into a genuine global hit, True Damage are finally stepping back onto the stage. Riot has released the first gameplay trailer for True Damage: Know My Name, revealing completely new skins for Ekko, Akali, Yasuo, Senna and Qiyana ahead of their arrival in League of Legends with Patch 26.21.

The collection accompanies a much bigger musical comeback. Know My Name is also the official anthem of the 2026 League of Legends World Championship, making True Damage the first Riot virtual group to headline a Worlds anthem. The song itself arrives on October 8, with a music video built around Faker and T1’s historic run, while the new in-game looks follow on October 21. Seven years after True Damage appeared to be a one-song project, Riot is effectively treating the group as a major act again.

True Damage are returning with exactly the same five members

Riot has resisted the temptation to rebuild the group around newer champions.

The returning lineup remains Akali, Ekko, Qiyana, Senna and Yasuo, preserving the five-character structure established when True Damage debuted at the 2019 World Championship in Paris.

Their roles inside Riot’s fictional music universe remain similarly recognisable. Akali and Ekko are the group’s rappers, Qiyana combines vocals and rap, Senna remains its principal vocalist and Yasuo operates behind the group as DJ and producer.

That consistency is important because Riot has not treated its musical groups as interchangeable collections of champions. True Damage originally emerged from Akali’s desire to create something different from K/DA, giving the group a harder hip-hop identity built around artists with sharply contrasting personalities.

The new Know My Name era keeps that foundation intact while visually ageing the group forward.

The trailer does not simply recolour the 2019 outfits. Every member has received a redesigned look built around a new aesthetic dominated by dark clothing, bright saturated effects, graffiti-like colour and explosive visual treatments that are substantially more aggressive than the cleaner streetwear presentation of the original skins.

Riot’s accompanying tagline — “from the dust, they were built to arise” — is also clearly leaning into the idea that this is a comeback rather than another unrelated appearance.

True Damage disappeared for years.

Now the group is being presented as though it never stopped evolving.

Akali receives the premium treatment this time

The most substantial individual skin belongs to Akali.

Current PBE material identifies True Damage: Know My Name Akali as a Legendary skin, placing it above the standard Epic-tier entries received by most of the group. That means Riot has significantly more freedom to alter her animations, visual presentation, sound effects and overall character performance than it would with a conventional 1,350 RP skin.

The trailer already makes that distinction visible.

Akali receives more elaborate movement and ability presentation, with the new design leaning heavily into vibrant street-art effects. Her familiar neon identity remains present, but the old True Damage combination of black, white and fluorescent accents has evolved toward a rougher, louder style.

The choice also gives Akali another unusually prominent position within Riot’s music universe.

She was already the connective tissue between K/DA and True Damage, appearing as the rapper who moved between both groups rather than abandoning one to join the other. SOYEON’s continued involvement reinforces that continuity outside the game as well.

Akali was not the Legendary member of the original 2019 collection. That position belonged to Ekko.

For Know My Name, Riot has effectively passed the spotlight.

Ekko trades his old Legendary skin for a Prestige comeback

Ekko receives a very different type of premium treatment.

Rather than another Legendary skin, the new collection introduces Prestige True Damage: Know My Name Ekko.

That is a notable reversal of the original True Damage hierarchy.

In 2019, True Damage Ekko was the collection’s Legendary skin, complete with extensive new voice work and presentation built around the two vocal performers representing him on GIANTS. The new Ekko skin instead uses the Prestige framework, pairing a high-fashion interpretation with custom models, VFX, SFX, animations and recall effects.

The exact live acquisition method should be treated as provisional until Riot publishes the full Patch 26.21 notes and event details. The Prestige version is already appearing through the PBE cycle, but Riot’s initial gameplay trailer focuses on how the skin looks rather than laying out the complete reward economy surrounding it.

Visually, however, Ekko remains one of the defining characters of the group.

That makes sense considering what Riot is doing with Know My Name outside League itself.

Ekko’s fictional music persona has also been pushed heavily in the promotional campaign surrounding the comeback, with Riot presenting him as an artist who has spent the years since GIANTS refining his craft rather than simply vanishing between releases.

True Damage’s return is therefore being written almost like the second album era of an actual group.

Qiyana returns to the group that gave her one of League’s most famous Prestige skins

Qiyana is back in a standard Epic-tier entry, with current PBE pricing listing the new skin at 1,350 RP.

Her inclusion has particular historical significance.

True Damage Qiyana was one of the defining skins of Riot’s 2019 collaboration with Louis Vuitton, with the Prestige Edition designed in partnership with Nicolas Ghesquière becoming the first League Prestige skin created with the fashion house.

The partnership helped establish just how far Riot wanted to push the intersection between League cosmetics, virtual music and real-world fashion.

Know My Name takes a different direction.

There is currently no equivalent fashion-house collaboration attached to the new Qiyana skin. Instead, the redesign fits her into the broader visual language of the returning group, using strong colour contrasts and more disruptive visual effects around her elemental weapon.

She remains the same self-assured performer Riot established in 2019, but the new era is less interested in luxury runway imagery and more interested in making the group feel like it has exploded back into public view.

Current PBE information places Qiyana alongside Senna and Yasuo as one of the three Epic skins in the collection.

Senna returns after becoming one of True Damage’s fashion icons

Senna receives another 1,350 RP Epic skin.

Like Qiyana, she has an unusually strong connection to True Damage’s original fashion history.

Her first skin launched alongside the group in 2019 before receiving Prestige True Damage Senna in February 2020, the second Prestige League skin developed with Louis Vuitton after Qiyana.

That version leaned heavily into high fashion.

Know My Name instead gives her a more aggressive stage identity, with Riot’s new effects emphasising bright colour and impact around the enormous Relic Cannon.

Senna’s musical role is changing outside the Rift as well.

In the original GIANTS lineup, her vocals were performed by Keke Palmer. For Know My Name, Riot has recruited Grammy-winning R&B singer and actress Coco Jones.

The replacement is not being treated as a change to the fictional member herself. Senna remains Senna inside True Damage; Riot is simply giving the virtual performer a new real-world voice for the group’s second era.

That same approach applies to much of the returning lineup.

Yasuo remains behind the production desk while getting another stage look

The final standard skin belongs to Yasuo, also currently listed at 1,350 RP on the PBE.

True Damage has always handled Yasuo differently from the other four members.

He is not presented as a vocalist.

Within Riot’s music universe, Yasuo is the producer — the person responsible for shaping the group’s sound while Akali, Ekko, Qiyana and Senna occupy the vocal spotlight.

The original version of True Damage Yasuo eventually received its own Prestige Edition through a collaboration with A Bathing Ape, extending Riot’s fashion experiments beyond the Louis Vuitton work attached to Qiyana and Senna.

The Know My Name version keeps Yasuo visually tied to the group without changing that producer identity.

His redesigned clothing and effects fit the new collection, while his abilities provide Riot with plenty of opportunities to incorporate the line’s colourful graphics into wind effects, sword attacks and his Ultimate.

The result is less transformative than Akali’s Legendary treatment but deliberately coherent with the other Epic skins.

Riot is clearly designing the five champions as a group first and individual cosmetics second.

Know My Name is far more than a skin collection

The skins are only one component of True Damage’s comeback.

Know My Name is the official anthem of Worlds 2026, the thirteenth World Championship anthem Riot has produced and the first one performed by one of its own virtual music acts.

That makes the return considerably more significant than a normal skin-line revival.

True Damage debuted at Worlds 2019, but GIANTS itself was not the official anthem for that tournament. The 2019 Worlds song was Phoenix, while True Damage performed GIANTS as part of the Finals Opening Ceremony.

In 2026, the group gets the anthem itself.

Know My Name launches across major streaming platforms on October 8 at 6 PM Pacific Time, alongside the premiere of its official music video on the League of Legends YouTube channel. In Central European time, that places the premiere at 3 AM CEST on October 9.

The song arrives almost two weeks before the skins.

Patch 26.21 is officially scheduled for October 21, so Riot is separating True Damage’s musical comeback from the commercial release of the cosmetics rather than dropping everything on the same day.

That gives Know My Name room to function as a Worlds song before the skin collection arrives on the Rift.

SOYEON is the only returning vocalist from GIANTS

The fictional lineup has not changed, but the real-world performers behind it largely have.

SOYEON of i-dle returns as Akali, maintaining a relationship with the character that stretches through both K/DA and True Damage.

She is the only featured vocalist from GIANTS returning for Know My Name.

The rest of the group has been recast.

Vic Mensa takes on Ekko’s material, replacing the combination of DUCKWRTH and Thutmose used in GIANTS.

Coco Jones performs Senna, replacing Keke Palmer.

Sofía Reyes takes Qiyana’s role from Becky G.

Yasuo once again remains the fictional producer rather than receiving a corresponding featured vocalist.

The new lineup gives Riot a mixture of Korean pop, American hip-hop and R&B, and Latin pop similar in philosophy to the international combination that made GIANTS distinctive, even though most of the actual performers have changed.

Riot is clearly trying to preserve the idea of True Damage as an international collective rather than a group attached to one specific musical scene.

GIANTS has been waiting seven years for a follow-up

The length of the gap makes the comeback unusual even by Riot Music standards.

GIANTS released on November 10, 2019, accompanying the World Championship Final in Paris.

It featured SOYEON, Becky G, Keke Palmer, DUCKWRTH and Thutmose and introduced the five True Damage champions alongside their first skin collection.

The official music video has since accumulated more than 230 million YouTube views, while the project became one of the most recognisable examples of Riot turning League characters into performers capable of existing beyond the game.

And then True Damage essentially stopped.

K/DA returned with an entire EP and another major skin era in 2020. Pentakill eventually released its third album. Riot later created HEARTSTEEL and continued building music directly around League characters.

True Damage remained largely attached to GIANTS.

That makes Know My Name the group’s first new single in seven years.

For a virtual act, that is an enormous hiatus.

Riot could easily have treated True Damage as a one-off product of Worlds 2019. Bringing back exactly the same five champions, building another complete skin collection and making the group responsible for the Worlds anthem instead suggests Riot now sees considerably more value in treating its virtual acts as recurring music properties.

The new Worlds video belongs to Faker and T1

The Know My Name music video is not primarily being framed as a story about the five True Damage characters.

Instead, Riot is using the song to celebrate Faker and T1.

The video will look back at Faker’s career through the triumphs and defeats that ultimately led to T1’s historic three consecutive World Championship victories, with Riot describing resilience as the central theme.

That gives the title Know My Name an obvious double meaning.

Within True Damage, it is a comeback statement from musicians returning after seven years.

Within Worlds, it applies to the player whose name has become effectively inseparable from professional League of Legends.

Riot has repeatedly turned Worlds anthems into stories about competitive legacy, but pairing that narrative with an established virtual group is new territory.

Until now, Riot’s music acts and its annual esports anthem occupied neighbouring but distinct spaces.

True Damage is crossing that boundary.

True Damage will perform at the Worlds Final in New York

The comeback will eventually leave the music video and enter the live World Championship production.

True Damage is scheduled to perform at the Worlds 2026 Final Opening Ceremony on November 14 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

That will bring the group back to the same kind of stage on which it originally debuted seven years earlier.

The 2019 performance used augmented-reality versions of the League champions alongside their real performers in Paris. Riot has not yet fully detailed how the 2026 staging will work, but its opening ceremonies have continued to expand technologically since then.

The significance is clear regardless of presentation.

True Damage were created for a Worlds Finals stage.

Their first real comeback ends on another one.

Riot is stacking its virtual bands across consecutive patches

The timing also reveals how aggressively Riot is using League’s music universe around Worlds 2026.

Patch 26.20, released on October 7, introduces the new HEARTSTEEL Live My Life skins for Ezreal, Kayn, Aphelios, Yone, K’Sante and Sett, including a Prestige version for Sett.

Two weeks later, Patch 26.21 introduces True Damage’s new era.

That gives League consecutive patches built around two different virtual music groups during the most important competitive period of the year.

The contrast between them is intentional.

HEARTSTEEL leans toward a polished modern boy-band presentation.

True Damage remains rooted in hip-hop, streetwear and an intentionally harder visual identity.

Rather than choosing one music project to carry the entire Worlds season, Riot is effectively turning several patches into a wider celebration of the fictional music industry it has built around League.

And Know My Name occupies the most prestigious position because it carries the actual World Championship anthem.

Patch 26.21 completes the visual comeback on October 21

The trailer confirms that all five True Damage: Know My Name skins will make their in-game debut with Patch 26.21.

Riot’s official 2026 schedule currently places that update on Wednesday, October 21.

Current PBE information indicates the following structure:

Akali receives the Legendary skin.

Ekko receives the Prestige skin.

Qiyana, Senna and Yasuo receive Epic skins currently listed at 1,350 RP each.

Because Patch 26.21 is still in its PBE cycle, exact acquisition details and individual cosmetic elements remain subject to change before release. In particular, players interested in Prestige Ekko should wait for Riot’s final event and patch documentation before assuming a specific currency or reward path.

The broad structure, however, is now clear.

This is not Riot simply bringing five old skins back into the shop.

It is a second True Damage generation built around the same champions, with new designs tied directly to the group’s second song.

True Damage finally feel like a band rather than a one-song experiment

The biggest change may therefore have nothing to do with Akali’s animations or Ekko’s Prestige treatment.

True Damage now have a history.

When GIANTS launched, the group was an event — an elaborate Worlds performance, a collection of skins and a single track designed to push Riot’s virtual music concept further after K/DA.

For years, that looked like the entire story.

Know My Name changes the interpretation.

The same five characters have returned. Their appearances have evolved. Most of their performers have changed. The fictional artists are being presented as having continued their careers during the time audiences could not see them.

And instead of merely appearing alongside Worlds, they now provide its official anthem.

Riot is treating the seven-year absence as part of the comeback rather than pretending it never happened.

That makes the new skins more effective than they would be as an isolated cosmetic release. They visually represent a second era for a group that finally has one.

Know My Name releases on October 8 at 6 PM PT, with its official Worlds 2026 music video premiering simultaneously. True Damage: Know My Name Akali, Ekko, Yasuo, Senna and Qiyana then arrive in League of Legends with Patch 26.21 on October 21, before the group takes the stage at the Worlds Final in Brooklyn on November 14.