It may stilll be the VCT offseason, but you can finally watch top-tier VALORANT esports, just not in the way you expect it. Earlier this week, Apple released a Mark Wahlberg-led action comedy titled The Family Plan, featuring a scene with Wahlberg’s character’s son playing a professional VALORANT match.
Wahlberg’s character’s son, who goes by the name Kyle “Kyllboi” Morgan, is competing in a pro showmatch alongside Valkyrae against a team led by iiTzTimmy. Kyllboi almost single-handedly wins the match in the final round with a Chamber ace, prompting the crowd to chant his name.
The clip in question, shared by Riot esports interviewer and writer Daniel J. Collette, caught a lot of VALORANT fans off guard, as seemingly very few people knew the game was going to play such a prominent part in the movie. iiTzTimmy had shared a tweet earlier this week confirming both his and Valkyrae’s cameo appearances.
The scene in the movie gets VALORANT mostly right, if not for just a few abnormalities. For starters, Kyllboi and Valkyrae’s team are running an audacious comp choice for Fracture that features Chamber, Harbor, and Sage. There are also a couple of transitions that show Chamber with his Tour de Force rifle out before cutting to him using his Headhunter pistol, but outside of this, there’s nothing egregiously wrong with the clip from a gameplay perspective. There have certainly been worse interpretations of professional gaming in mainstream shows and films.
It’s unclear how much Kyllboi’s pro VALORANT career has to do with the plot of the movie, which revolves around “the past catching up to” Wahlberg’s former assassin turned family man character, but it’s neat to see the Riot Games shooter and a couple of its major content creators get some mainstream recognition and screen time.
Maybe Wahlberg will be the next celebrity to make an appearance at Champions.
Published: Dec 19, 2023 10:42 pm