''Players'' is an American

mockumentary A mockumentary (a blend of ''mock'' and ''documentary''), fake documentary or docu-comedy is a type of film or television show depicting fictional events but presented as a documentary. These productions are often used to analyze or comment on ...

television series created by

Dan Perrault Dan Perrault is an American television writer and producer. He is best-known for the TV series ''American Vandal'', for which he won a Peabody Award. Career In 2011, Perrault co-founded the production company Woodhead Entertainment along wit ...

and Tony Yacenda, that premiered on June 16, 2022, on

Paramount+ Paramount+ is an American subscription video on-demand service owned by Paramount Global. The service's content is drawn primarily from the libraries of CBS Media Ventures (including CBS Studios), Paramount Media Networks (formerly Viacom Med ...

. The series is a parody of sports documentaries, and follows Fugitive Gaming, a fictional pro ''

League of Legends ''League of Legends'' (''LoL''), commonly referred to as ''League'', is a 2009 multiplayer online battle arena video game developed and published by Riot Games. Inspired by ''Defense of the Ancients'', a custom map for ''Warcraft III'', Ri ...

'' esports team.

Cast and characters

Main

* Misha Brooks as Creamcheese, Fugitive's 27-year-old veteran player * Da’Jour Jones as Organizm, Fugitive's 17-year old gaming prodigy * Ely Henry as Kyle Braxton, Fugitive's coach, and Creamcheese's closest friend

Recurring

* Holly Chou as April Braxton * Youngbin Chung as Nightfall * Noh Dong-Hyeon as BAP * Micheal Ahn as Bucket * Moses Storm as Guru * Alexa Mansour as Emma 'Emmanence' Resnick * Luke Tennie as Rudy Elmore Jr. * Matt Shively as Frugger * Stephen Schneider as Nathan Resnick * Peter Thurnwald as Foresight * Miles Mussenden as Rudy Elmore Sr. * Arischa Conner as Simone Elmore *

as Paul 'Bignpaul' Gilberstadt * Ryan O'Flanagan as Chris McManus * Christopher Gilstrap as PuttPutt

Episodes

Production

In August 2021, it was announced that

had picked up a new comedic docu-style series that will explore the world of esports, titled ''Players.'' The show is created by '' American Vandal'' co-creators, Tony Yacenda and

, both of whom serve as executive producers, with the former directing.

CBS Studios CBS Studios, Inc. is an American television production company which is a subsidiary of CBS Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Global. It was formed on January 17, 2006, by CBS Corporation as CBS Paramount Television, as a renaming of the o ...

produces the series, in association with,

Funny or Die Funny or Die is a comedy video website and film/television production company owned by Henry R. Muñoz III that was founded by Will Ferrell, Adam McKay, Mark Kvamme, and Chris Henchy in 2007. The website contained exclusive material from a re ...

Riot Games Riot Games, Inc. is an American video game developer, publisher and esports tournament organizer based in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in September 2006 by Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill to develop ''League of Legends'' and went on ...

3 Arts Entertainment 3 Arts Entertainment is an American talent management and television/film production company founded by Erwin Stoff, Michael Rotenberg and Howard Klein in 1991. The company has gone on to produce TV shows such as ''King of the Hill'', '' The O ...

and Brillstein Entertainment Partners. After coming off from ''American Vandal'', Yacenda and Perrault sought to do another mockumentary style show. They got the idea for ''Players'' after doing research on the world of esports. Sport docuseries like '' The Last Dance'', '' Cheer'' and '' Formula 1: Drive to Survive'' were inspirations for the show. The creators also looked at the narrative drama '' The Queen's Gambit'' as an example of how to depict a complicated game like chess for viewers who may not know the rules. In addition to having people from the '' League'' community in the writers room, producers at Riot Games would fact-check the scripts, in order to keep the show authentic to real life esports.

Release

The first four episodes were released on June 16, 2022, with subsequent episodes releasing weekly until July 28, 2022. The first season consisted of ten episodes.

Reception

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the series has a weighted average score of 80 out of 100, based on reviews from 10 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

References

External links

''Players''
on

* {{Paramount+, state=collapsed 2020s American mockumentary television series 2022 American television series debuts English-language television shows Riot Games Television series by 3 Arts Entertainment Television series by Funny or Die Television series by CBS Studios Esports television series Paramount+ original programming