The Origins Of Arcane
Arcane also known as Arcane: League of Legends, is an animated series based on the League of Legends lore, retelling the origin stories of several characters from Piltover and Zaun. The series was adapted for television by Christian Linke member of Riot Games creative team and long-time contributors to the source material.
Pitched by Linke in around 2014-2015, everything from planning and starting up the project to the overall writing, production, and animation took around six years before its eventual release. With this being the company's first foray into this media format, Riot Games decided to have Arcane developed internally and independently financed, though initially through the collaboration of Linke and Yee with artists they've worked with before they began to receive more funding from Riot.
Riot's then Global Head of Entertainment Businesses and Partnerships Jarred Kennedy worked with a creative team of writers (including Linke) in Los Angeles. The series was produced with and animated by Fortiche, a French animation and creative production studio based in Paris, Montpellier and Las Palmas (Spain) that has worked with Riot on various videos for its champions in the past. The voice actors came in early in the production process, but majority of the main cast was only announced years later on September 21, 2021.
The series was announced on October 15, 2019 as part of the League of Legends 10th anniversary celebrations,with Riot Games' CEO Nicolo Laurent stating that they have plans for Arcane to have multiple seasons. Original slated for a 2020 release, the show was delayed to 2021 due to COVID-19-related difficulties. On May 3, 2021, it was announced that the show has been picked up by Netflix for international release and by Tencent Video in China with a fall release date.
Though the events of the series are heavily based on the established lore of the game, some differences have already been noted in the series. Creators Christian Linke have shared that the changes are not necessarily retcons but are "adjustments in order to give [the viewers] the best story possible". Though working to make Arcane as consistent as possible with canon, as of 2021, he doesn't "think [they] would be considered a source of truth over the game", adding that they are taking into consideration the reaction of the fans, the current setup of Riot and its games, as well as the updates and changes to the characters.