Edited by Rachel Heung
Riot Games is well known for their music and animations that are accompanied by a couple average games. With songs such as Warriors and Legends Never Die reaching hundreds of millions of views, they’ve made a couple bucks. But they’re main cash cow is an addictive drug called League Of Legends, where hundreds of thousands of virgins spend their life savings on the new Lux skin. Since League of Legends makes so much money for Riot, they’ve accompanied their game with different animations and lore to expand upon their universe. Players have been begging for them to make a TV show of some sort to introduce the characters of the League Of Legends universe, and they finally have, but it wasn’t what fans expected.
On their 10th anniversary, Riot announced their animated series called Arcane (League of Legends, 2019). This generated some hype because finally Rito(name for Riot by players) had listened. Originally set for a 2020 release, it was of course delayed until 2021. It was a long wait, but finally Rito games released Arcane on the 6th of November. It was released on Netflix, accompanied with a premier that was streamed on Twitch. With a seemingly infinite money, Riot marketed their show everywhere, including a variety of other games such as PUBG and Among us ඞ.
The show was split into 3 acts, with each act spanning across 3 episodes, totalling 9 episodes. Each episode was packed to the brim with content, a full 40 minutes of fun (sometimes). The show takes place in the cities of Piltover & Zaun. Piltover is the rich and prosperous city that sits directly above Zaun, the poor undercity. With it’s vertical difference, it’s directly symbolic to the rich & poor relationship.
The show follows Jinx & Vi in Zaun, and Viktor (pog!) & Jayce in Piltover. A couple other champs are included such as Caitlyn ;) , Ekko, and Heimerdinger. The story revolves around the backstory behind those characters and how they came to be who they are.
Video game tv show adaptations have been known to be questionable. But god damn did Riot pull through because Arcane is amazing. With such a mainstream game, it’s surprising how mature the show is, combined with the out of the world animation by studio Fortiche. The writing is impeccable, and the music is of course the best (because Riot is a music company).
Rotten Tomatoes reported a 100% approval rating and an average rating of 8.8/10 (Rotten Tomatoes, 2021). IGN gave the show a 10/10, stating that Arcane “delivers a killing blow to the idea that video games cannot be masterfully adapted” (Motamayor, 2021).
Should you watch Arcane? Yeah go watch it. But don’t be tempted to play League of Legends. Don’t play it. Just wait for season 2 of Arcane, releasing sometime between the next 2-6 years.
References
Arcane: League of Legends. (2021). Retrieved 1 December 2021, from
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/arcane_league_of_legends/s01
Motamayor, R. (2021). Arcane Season 1 Review - IGN. Retrieved 1 December 2021, from
https://www.ign.com/articles/arcane-season-1-review-league-of-legends
Tan, A. (2021). Full list of League of Legends champions in Arcane and the episode they
appear. Retrieved 1 December 2021, from https://www.oneesports.gg/lol/league-of-
legends-champions-arcane/
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