Cape Town-based music and audio studio Pressure Cooker Studios has reached a new high point in its career, having now composed original music for three significant League of Legends releases from Riot Games. The studio delivered the score for the champion theme of Locke, The Ashen Exorcist, the music for the Back from the Brink champion cinematic, as well as the soundtrack for the Pandemonium 2026 Season Two Act I gameplay trailer featuring Vayne.

The achievement caps over a decade of work by the studio to position itself among the top tier of composers serving the global games industry, and represents what its team describes as a defining moment in bridging the gap between the African continent and the wider gaming world.

James Matthes, Creative Executive Officer of Pressure Cooker Studios, attributes the breakthrough to years of sustained effort rather than a single lucky break. He points to attending international conferences without guaranteed outcomes, building relationships over long stretches of time, and letting the studio’s body of work speak for itself in rooms where the team wasn’t always present.

“When we got this opportunity, we had everything in place,” Matthes reflects. “We were prepared to not just show up for a project of this calibre, but to bring something unique from our continent to the world.” says James Matthes, Creative Executive Officer of Pressure Cooker Studios.

The relationship with Riot Games began with the studio winning the pitch to compose the champion theme for Locke, The Ashen Exorcist, a brand-new League of Legends champion. That win became the foundation for everything that followed, including the deepened sonic world built around Locke through the Back from the Brink cinematic.

The Pandemonium trailer presented a different kind of challenge altogether. Vayne, one of League of Legends’ oldest and most recognisable champions, predates the era when champions received individual musical themes, meaning Pressure Cooker Studios had to build her musical identity from scratch. The task carried both creative freedom and the weight of honouring a character with a long-established and deeply invested fanbase.

For this project, the studio drew on what it calls its Future Cinematic Sound, an approach rooted in weaving African musicality into contemporary cinematic scoring. The team brought in local South African vocalists, whose textures and tonal qualities added emotional depth to the piece while staying true to the established world of League of Legends.

Matthes described the challenge of making Vayne stand out while ensuring she still felt at home within her universe, noting that the studio was selective about where its African-influenced approach would genuinely enhance the work rather than forcing it where it didn’t belong.

Composer Elben Schutte led the final composition on the Pandemonium trailer, and the project held personal significance for him. Vayne was the very first champion he played when he started out in League of Legends, making the chance to score her gameplay trailer years later a full-circle moment.

Matthes reflected on the broader trajectory of the studio’s work, from its original soundtrack for Manor Lords to now scoring entries in the League of Legends universe, calling it proof that work created in Africa, with care and craft, can resonate on the world’s biggest stages.

Beyond the studio’s own milestone, Matthes sees the wider significance for the continent’s creative industry. He believes there is deep talent across Africa that simply needs access and trust to contribute on a global level, and hopes that landing work of this scale helps shift industry perceptions of what African studios are capable of delivering.

The work across all three projects was shaped by what the studio calls its “made by many” philosophy, with multiple composers exploring different creative directions for each brief before the final pieces were shaped collectively. Matthes describes it as the studio working fully as one, without compromise.