VALORANT Champions 2026 anthem unites Grabbitz, Bring Me The Horizon’s Oli Sykes and Spiritbox’s Courtney LaPlante

VALORANT Champions is preparing to sound considerably heavier in 2026.

Riot Games has revealed the first preview of “If The Sun Burns Out Tonight,” the official anthem for VALORANT Champions 2026, bringing together longtime VALORANT collaborator Grabbitz with Oli Sykes of Bring Me The Horizon and Courtney LaPlante of Spiritbox. The announcement provides an early listen rather than the complete song, but the short preview already establishes a significantly more aggressive musical identity for the final international event of the 2026 VALORANT Champions Tour.

The collaboration is particularly notable because it combines three artists whose styles occupy different parts of the alternative music spectrum. Grabbitz brings the electronic production, cinematic songwriting and direct connection to VALORANT that helped make “Die For You” one of the game’s defining songs. Sykes contributes the intensity and genre-fluid approach that has allowed Bring Me The Horizon to move between metalcore, electronic music, pop, industrial and alternative rock, while LaPlante brings the controlled melodic vocals and extreme vocal power associated with Spiritbox.

Together, they are creating a song intended to accompany the final chapter of a VCT season that concludes in Shanghai from September 24 through October 18, 2026. Riot has not yet released the complete anthem through its announcement, making this first teaser primarily a statement of intent: Grabbitz is returning to Champions, but this time he has brought two of modern heavy music’s most recognizable voices with him.

Grabbitz is returning to the tournament that gave VALORANT one of its defining songs

The phrase “Grabbitz is back” carries considerably more weight for longtime VALORANT players than a normal artist announcement. Nicholas Chiari, better known as Grabbitz, was the voice behind “Die For You,” the official anthem for the inaugural VALORANT Champions in 2021. The song became closely associated with the early identity of competitive VALORANT, combining electronic production, rock instrumentation and a chorus constructed around perseverance even when defeat appears unavoidable.

Its accompanying animated music video reinforced that connection through professional players and recognizable in-game imagery rather than treating the track as a separate promotional single. “Die For You” subsequently became one of Riot’s most enduring VALORANT music releases, continuing to accumulate an audience years after the first Champions trophy had already been awarded.

Grabbitz returned prominently in 2023 through “Ticking Away,” created with bbno$ for VALORANT Champions Los Angeles, and performed during the event’s Grand Final opening ceremony. The contrast between the two tracks demonstrated why Riot repeatedly works with him. He can move between emotionally charged electronic rock and more playful hybrid production without losing the rhythmic momentum required for an esports anthem.

“If The Sun Burns Out Tonight” now reconnects Champions with an artist who was present when the tournament identity was first being established.

The new anthem sounds designed for collapse rather than celebration

Even its title establishes a different atmosphere from several previous Champions songs. “If The Sun Burns Out Tonight” does not describe victory directly. It imagines catastrophe and asks what remains when something seemingly permanent disappears.

That idea fits Champions particularly well. The tournament represents the end of an entire competitive season, but almost every team arriving there will eventually experience elimination. Months of qualification, international competition and Championship Points can end through one series. Careers can change after a single map, while players who appeared untouchable throughout the year can disappear from the bracket within days.

A useful Champions anthem therefore cannot be exclusively triumphant. It needs to work when a team lifts the trophy, but it also needs to accompany the moments when another roster realizes its season is over. The early preview suggests Riot is leaning into precisely that emotional contrast, using heavy instrumentation and multiple vocal identities to create something that can move between desperation and defiance rather than operating as straightforward victory music.

The sun burning out becomes an extreme metaphor for the competitive question underneath the entire tournament: what do you do when everything you expected to rely on is suddenly gone?

Oli Sykes brings Bring Me The Horizon’s genre collision into VALORANT

Oli Sykes is an especially appropriate collaborator for a Riot Games soundtrack because Bring Me The Horizon has spent much of its career refusing to remain inside one musical category. The band emerged from the British heavy scene with an extreme sound before gradually incorporating metalcore, alternative rock, pop structures, orchestration, industrial textures and increasingly prominent electronic production.

That evolution makes Sykes unusually compatible with Grabbitz. A conventional metal vocalist placed over an electronic esports track could easily sound like two separate styles being forced together. Bring Me The Horizon already approaches production through the same kind of collision, treating synthesizers, distorted guitars, programmed textures and aggressive vocals as parts of one system rather than mutually exclusive genres.

Sykes has also repeatedly shown an interest in music that operates alongside larger visual or narrative concepts. That matters for Riot, where an anthem is rarely released as nothing more than a song. Champions music usually becomes part of a larger package involving animation, player narratives, tournament cinematics, stage performances, broadcast transitions and eventually cosmetic presentation inside VALORANT itself.

His presence gives Riot access not just to one recognizable rock voice, but to an artist whose own work already operates comfortably at the intersection between music, digital aesthetics and narrative spectacle.

Courtney LaPlante gives the track another completely different weapon

Courtney LaPlante provides the third major component. As Spiritbox’s vocalist, she is capable of moving between atmospheric clean singing and some of the most aggressive harsh vocals in modern heavy music, often within the same composition. That range gives “If The Sun Burns Out Tonight” considerable possibilities because the track does not need to assign one emotional function to one singer.

A quiet LaPlante section can create tension before a larger chorus. Her harsher delivery can reinforce a breakdown or escalation. Sykes can occupy another melodic or aggressive layer, while Grabbitz can connect the entire structure through electronic production and his own vocal presence.

The collaboration also has history outside VALORANT. LaPlante has previously joined Bring Me The Horizon live, so Sykes and LaPlante are not being introduced to one another purely for Riot’s project. Music press covering the announcement reports that LaPlante specifically highlighted the opportunity to finally release something they had worked on together, while describing Grabbitz’s production as suited to all three voices.

That pre-existing familiarity matters. Three recognizable names do not automatically create a coherent song. The stronger proposition is that each artist has enough stylistic overlap to make the collaboration sound intentional.

Grabbitz sits between the electronic and heavy sides of the song

Grabbitz may be the least immediately recognizable name to listeners arriving from Bring Me The Horizon or Spiritbox, but structurally he may be the most important person involved. His production acts as the bridge between both bands’ heavier tendencies and VALORANT’s established electronic musical identity.

Music associated with VALORANT frequently uses synthetic percussion, processed vocals, bass-heavy production and aggressive transitions that can be cut effectively into gameplay montages and broadcast packages. A purely guitar-driven metal song might work as a standalone track but would require more adaptation to function throughout an esports event. Grabbitz already understands the language Riot uses around Champions.

His previous work demonstrates that he can construct songs around memorable vocal hooks without sacrificing the impact required for cinematic editing. “Die For You” could accompany an emotional player story and still explode when the action began. “Ticking Away” could work as both a full song and a live-event performance.

The new anthem appears to expand that formula by giving him access to substantially heavier vocal and instrumental textures.

VALORANT Champions has built its own musical lineage since 2021

Champions music has become an annual ritual rather than incidental tournament promotion. “Die For You” established the template in 2021. “Fire Again” featuring Ashnikko followed for Champions 2022, while Grabbitz returned alongside bbno$ for “Ticking Away” in 2023. Riot shifted toward Julie and Natty of KISS OF LIFE with Mark Tuan for “SUPERPOWER” in 2024, before templuv and 347aidan’s “Last Shot” accompanied Champions Paris in 2025.

The songs vary considerably in genre, which is important. Riot has not attempted to create one fixed “VALORANT sound” by repeating the same production every year. Instead, the continuity comes from theme: pressure, ambition, identity, sacrifice and the emotional instability of attempting to become world champion.

“If The Sun Burns Out Tonight” may represent the hardest-edged entry in that sequence. The combination of Sykes and LaPlante immediately creates expectations of a heavier structure, while Grabbitz provides a direct musical connection back to the beginning of the Champions anthem tradition.

That makes the 2026 track simultaneously familiar and new. Riot is bringing back one of the artists most closely associated with VALORANT while surrounding him with voices capable of pushing the anthem somewhere it has not fully gone before.

The teaser is intentionally withholding the complete song

Riot’s current announcement is an early listen, not the full official music video or complete single release. That distinction is important because a short preview cannot establish the final song structure, lyrical narrative or how extensively each vocalist appears.

The teaser can demonstrate tone. It can show the chemistry between the artists. It cannot reveal whether the finished track is built primarily around electronic rock, metalcore, industrial production or a more atmospheric structure that only becomes heavy at selected moments.

Riot has also not provided a definitive full streaming-release date through the official teaser itself. With Champions Shanghai beginning on September 24, the complete anthem naturally belongs to the promotional build-up toward the tournament, but players should not treat dates circulating outside Riot’s announcement as final until the company confirms the release schedule directly.

That uncertainty also means the eventual music video remains an important missing piece.

The official music video will determine what story the anthem actually tells

Champions music videos traditionally do more than visualize a song. They construct narratives around the players, teams and competitive moments defining that year.

“Die For You” became memorable partly because its animation transformed esports competitors into characters inside a stylized VALORANT story. Later Champions videos continued connecting professional players with Agents, locations and symbolic imagery from the game.

The title “If The Sun Burns Out Tonight” offers Riot unusually rich material for that kind of treatment. A world losing its light can represent elimination, pressure, isolation or the destruction of expectations. Agents could be placed inside environments physically collapsing around them, while professional players could represent the competitors attempting to continue when the path they imagined disappears.

The 2026 season also gives Riot a broader selection of narratives because qualification has become more open.

Champions Shanghai will not simply represent the end of the International League season. Riot redesigned the 2026 ecosystem so that Challengers teams can reach Stage 2 Playoffs and potentially continue directly toward Champions. The eventual participants may therefore include organizations and players whose route to the world stage looked impossible under earlier structures.

For an anthem built around continuing after apparent catastrophe, that competitive context is useful.

Champions Shanghai will conclude the most open VCT qualification structure yet

The 2026 VALORANT Champions Tour introduced major changes to the road toward the world championship. Kickoff adopted triple elimination, Masters Santiago expanded the first global event of the year to twelve teams, and the normal International League stages continued determining qualification and Championship Points.

The larger structural change came through Challengers. Instead of treating the second-tier circuit as a separate road toward Ascension, Riot created a direct Path to Champions, allowing qualifying Challengers organizations to enter Stage 2 Playoffs against established International League teams.

That means the competitive hierarchy has become more permeable. A team outside the traditional partnership structure can theoretically progress through Challengers, survive the regional pathway, defeat established VCT opposition and reach the most important tournament of the season.

Champions qualification still demands exceptional performance, but the route is no longer reserved exclusively for the same closed competitive layer.

That makes 2026 particularly suited to an anthem about surviving when normal expectations collapse.

Shanghai becomes the final destination from September 24 to October 18

Champions Shanghai runs from September 24 through October 18, 2026, serving as the third global destination of the season after Masters Santiago and Masters London.

Shanghai already has considerable history with VALORANT esports. Masters Shanghai in 2024 demonstrated the scale of the local audience and culminated at the Mercedes-Benz Arena, helping convince Riot that the city could host the World Championship itself. When the 2026 destination was originally announced, Riot explicitly pointed toward that previous event and the response it generated across the city.

Champions represents a different scale of significance. Masters identifies the strongest team at one stage of the season. Champions decides which organization becomes the world champion and permanently attaches that roster to one year of VALORANT history.

The anthem therefore has several weeks to develop alongside the qualification race before the first Champions match begins.

By the time “If The Sun Burns Out Tonight” is being used around the final weekend, its meaning will inevitably have changed. Fans will associate specific sections with clutches, eliminations and players who survived deeper into the tournament than anyone expected.

The final weeks of Stage 2 will decide who the song ultimately represents

As of August 18, the regional Stage 2 competitions remain the immediate battleground. The broader Stage 2 period runs through early September before Champions begins later that month, meaning the anthem has been announced while many of its eventual protagonists are still fighting to qualify.

That timing has become part of Riot’s annual Champions strategy. The song begins accumulating meaning before the complete tournament field is known.

A player listening now may support a team that never reaches Shanghai. Another organization may be considered an outsider today and become inseparable from the anthem two months later after producing an unexpected playoff run.

Esports music gains much of its longevity through that association. The composition remains unchanged, but the audience attaches moments to it. Hearing “Die For You” years later can evoke Champions 2021 even without watching the original video. “Ticking Away” carries memories of Los Angeles and the 2023 final.

“If The Sun Burns Out Tonight” is currently missing those memories.

Champions 2026 will create them.

Riot’s strongest esports anthems work because they are not written like advertising jingles

Riot Games has spent years turning competitive music into a recognizable part of its esports presentation, most obviously through League of Legends Worlds and increasingly through VALORANT Champions. The successful tracks rarely spend their lyrics explicitly describing game mechanics or shouting the name of the tournament.

Instead, they focus on emotions compatible with competition.

Fear.

Pressure.

Ambition.

Identity.

Defiance.

Sacrifice.

The result allows a song to function independently from the game while remaining extremely effective when Riot connects it to esports footage.

“If The Sun Burns Out Tonight” appears designed around the same principle. The title contains no VALORANT terminology. Someone unfamiliar with the game could hear it without knowing Riot commissioned it. Inside the Champions context, however, the imagery of light disappearing and people deciding what remains becomes immediately applicable to an elimination tournament.

That independence is important if Riot wants the anthem to live beyond October.

Bring Me The Horizon and Spiritbox dramatically expand the potential audience

The collaboration also places VALORANT in front of listeners who may have little connection to esports. Bring Me The Horizon and Spiritbox both command substantial audiences within modern alternative and heavy music, and placing their vocalists on one original track naturally creates interest outside VALORANT’s existing community.

The reverse is equally useful for the artists. Millions of VALORANT players who may not regularly engage with contemporary metal or alternative rock are being introduced to Sykes and LaPlante through a song attached to the game’s most prestigious tournament.

Riot has repeatedly used these intersections effectively. Instead of treating games, esports and music as entirely separate audiences, its campaigns assume substantial overlap and deliberately create additional crossover.

The result can make an esports anthem culturally larger than the competition it was commissioned to promote.

Courtney LaPlante and Oli Sykes create enormous expectations for a live performance

Riot has not used the teaser to announce a Champions Shanghai live performance by the three artists, so one should not be treated as confirmed. Nevertheless, the collaboration immediately raises that possibility because Champions Grand Finals have repeatedly incorporated live music into their opening ceremonies.

Grabbitz already has direct experience performing on the Champions stage after appearing alongside bbno$ during the 2023 Grand Final ceremony. Sykes and LaPlante are both experienced live performers whose vocal contrast would translate naturally into a large arena production.

If Riot eventually confirms an appearance, the arrangement could become one of Champions’ most ambitious opening performances. Electronic production can support synchronized visual effects and game cinematics, while the two heavy vocalists provide the kind of physical live intensity that prerecorded tournament music cannot reproduce completely.

For now, however, that remains a possibility rather than an announced part of Shanghai.

The title leaves room for both Sykes and LaPlante to occupy opposite emotional extremes

One of the most interesting questions is how Grabbitz has divided the vocals.

Sykes and LaPlante can both sing melodically and both can deliver extremely aggressive vocals. Using them only for interchangeable heavy sections would therefore waste much of the collaboration’s potential.

A more interesting arrangement would allow each performer to occupy different emotional positions before eventually converging. One could deliver restraint while another represents collapse. Clean passages could build toward harsher responses. Grabbitz could operate between them, giving the track the electronic continuity necessary to prevent those transitions from feeling disconnected.

The teaser already suggests a production designed around contrast rather than constant maximum intensity.

That is probably the correct decision for an esports anthem. If every second sounds like the climax, Riot has nowhere to escalate when editing the song around a decisive ace or final-round victory.

Heavy music is unusually compatible with VALORANT’s competitive rhythm

VALORANT is a tactical FPS, but its individual rounds frequently move from near silence to extreme violence within seconds. Teams hold angles, wait for utility and gather information before one execute suddenly fills the map with flashes, smoke, abilities and gunfire.

Heavy music operates effectively around that rhythm.

Atmospheric sections can mirror the setup.

Percussion can build while players prepare to enter a site.

A breakdown or explosive chorus can arrive as the actual engagement begins.

The stopping and starting found throughout modern metal production can also align naturally with edited gameplay where one bullet abruptly ends a duel before the montage shifts elsewhere.

Grabbitz’s electronic background makes that relationship even easier to exploit because Riot can combine heavy passages with the synthetic sound design already associated with VALORANT’s menus, cinematics and broadcast identity.

“If The Sun Burns Out Tonight” could reconnect Champions with the emotional weight of Die For You

The reason “Die For You” remains so strongly associated with VALORANT is not simply that it was the first Champions anthem. It captured something about the period when the esport was still proving itself.

The VCT was young. Its international history was short. Rivalries and dynasties had not yet accumulated years of context. Every major tournament was establishing precedents for the first time.

Five years later, VALORANT has world champions, legendary clutches, organizations associated with particular eras and players whose careers can already be divided into distinct competitive chapters.

Grabbitz returning in 2026 therefore creates a useful sense of symmetry.

The first anthem asked what someone was willing to sacrifice.

The new one imagines the light itself disappearing.

That escalation reflects an esport that now has substantially more history to lose.

Riot is revealing the song before revealing who will own its final moment

There is something structurally effective about announcing a Champions anthem this early.

Nobody yet knows which team will stand beneath the confetti in Shanghai on October 18.

Nobody knows which player will appear in the tournament’s defining clutch, which favourite will collapse unexpectedly or which underdog might survive every stage of qualification.

The artists have already recorded the soundtrack.

The competition now has to provide the images.

That relationship is what makes annual esports anthems different from normal promotional music. Once Champions concludes, the song becomes attached permanently to events its creators could not predict when recording it.

A lyric written as a general expression of survival may become associated with one specific comeback. A vocal climax may become inseparable from the final round. An instrumental section may eventually accompany the image of one player staring at the defeat screen while another team celebrates metres away.

The audience finishes the meaning Riot and the artists began.

Grabbitz is back, but the real surprise is who he brought with him

Riot could have generated considerable nostalgia simply by announcing another Grabbitz Champions song.

Instead, the company has used his return as the foundation for something more ambitious. Oli Sykes and Courtney LaPlante place Bring Me The Horizon and Spiritbox directly inside VALORANT’s biggest competitive music campaign, creating a lineup capable of moving between electronic atmosphere, melodic rock and genuine heaviness without requiring the song to choose only one.

The complete version of “If The Sun Burns Out Tonight” has yet to be unveiled through Riot’s current teaser, and the official music video remains another major part of the campaign still waiting to be seen. What is already clear is that Champions 2026 will not sound like the previous year.

Shanghai begins on September 24 and crowns the next VALORANT World Champion on October 18. Between those dates, one team will survive every elimination round while the rest watch their season disappear.

Grabbitz supplied VALORANT’s first Champions anthem in 2021.

Five years later, he has returned with two voices capable of making the end of the world sound appropriate for a Grand Final.