How Crab Rave arrived in TFT: Lead devs & Noisestorm break down iconic collab
Riot GamesWe spoke to the creators of TFT, the musician behind Crab Rave, and Monstercat to break down the game’s massive new collaboration as the iconic song arrives in the auto battler.
Riot Games’ auto battler has just announced an exciting new collaboration that brings the music of Noisestorm to Teamfight Tactics. Aligning with the beloved Crab Rave portal, Monstercat has partnered with TFT to bring the iconic soundtrack to the game.
We spoke to the Senior Game Director of TFT Peter Whalen, Gavin Johnson of Monstercat, and Noisestorm directly to find out what went into this head-bobbing partnership.
Getting into Tempo
Crab Rave is no doubt one of the least-expected internet smash hits. Who would’ve thought a meme song about Crabs could’ve resonated so much with audiences around the globe? Noisestorm surely didn’t start out with this in mind, saying that they were originally struggling to finish off a song.
“It was originally a ‘serious’ song that I was trying to finish up but kept winding back to tropical themes so I decided to embrace it as soon as the music video started to take shape- it all happened very organically!” the producer explained.
Of course, with a song so universally loved as Crab Rave, the TFT devs wanted to give it a shoutout in Set 10, naming a highly popular portal after the song. Lead designer Mortdog tweeted about the portal with the music video, catching the eyes of Monstercat.
“It turns out that the folks at Monstercat are also huge TFT fans with their CEO Mike Darlington and their Director of Sync and Partnerships Gavin Johnson responding that they’d love to collaborate. The rest is history,” Noisestorm explained.
“We worked together to get the song in game and we’re excited to share it with all of you!”
The March of the Crabs
Getting to work on something as big as this collaboration was no joke to the TFT devs, who said it was their honor to bring something like this to the player base.
“TFT is a huge game and it’s an honor to be able to bring something as iconic and fun as ‘Crab Rave’ to millions of players. Everyone wanted to succeed here and the Monstercat team has been really wonderful to work with,” Whalen elaborated.
A similar sentiment was echoed by Noisestorm, who had grown up identifying that soundtracks are an incredibly important aspect of any game, and was equally honored to bring this to TFT players.
“There’s no more surreal feeling than playing a game and hearing your own song come on; having grown up with countless games that have great soundtracks, it’s one of the more important aspects of a good game and I’m honored to be able to be a small part of that on games like Just Shapes & Beats or Rocket League and now TFT!”
These collaborations have had longstanding effects on Monstercat, who cited seeing a massive increase in streams when working together with titles like Rocket League.
“Our partnerships with titles like Rocket League have been an incredible vehicle for music discovery, fan acquisition, and powering incredible stories around our records and artists for gamers to connect with.
“We also have seen our records perform better in the long term, as many gamers love to relive cherished gaming moments by listening to featured music. I’m confident we will see this effect through our Teamfight Tactics integration with “Crab Rave.”
Crab Raving into the future
With this iconic collaboration now ready to be released in Patch 14.5, it opens a door that has many wondering what could come next. Fortunately, it seems the TFT devs are open to more partnerships, potentially ones that would suit the more tame Inkborn Fables.
“As for the future, if there’s a partnership that makes sense, we’d certainly explore it… We’ve learned a lot from this set and we’ll continue to take advantage of some of the tech that we’ve developed long into the future.
“But one of the joys of TFT is variety. Each of our sets celebrates something new, so while we love Remix Rumble, we’re excited for the calmer, more sophisticated vibes of Inkborn Fables.”