Riot Games Announces League Of Legends Animated Series ‘Arcane’

Game developer Riot Games, the fully Chinese-owned, Los Angeles-based maker of League of Legends, revealed this evening its first animated series, Arcane, through the release of this trailer.

There are limited details about the project, but here’s what we know at the moment:

• The series was developed internally at Riot, and the animation production was handled by Paris-based Fortiche, which has previously created similar-looking animation for League of Legends.
• The show was independently financed by Riot which, according to Jared Kennedy, Riot’s global head of IP businesses and partnerships, gave the studio “the creative oversight that we needed.”
• Arcane was announced during a League of Legends 10th anniversary livestream, among numerous other product announcements. The series will launch in 2020, though no distributor is set at this time.
• The series will be most appealing to those who are already familiar with the mythology of the game and want to further explore its roots. Riot co-founder Brandon Beck told The Hollywood Reporter: “Originally, League started off with a bunch of characters and we threw them together really quickly. Over time, players became really attached to the characters and we wanted to build more of a universe around them [with Arcane].”
• Based on the trailer, PC Gamer offered some thoughts on what the show may focus on: “What we do know is that the story focuses characters from the cities of Piltover and its underbelly of Zaun. … Beyond the hint of where the series is set, we don’t yet know who the main characters or villains will be. We can narrow it down, though, considering only a dozen or so champions come from Piltover and its underbelly of Zaun. Several characters made appearances in the trailer, including Jinx, Ekko, and Ezreal.”