Game On
OVER A DECADE, RIOT GAMES’ multiplayer online battle arena game League Of Legends has grown into a global phenomenon and become one of the bedrocks of esport competition. There are now 155 playable champions, and assuming the mantle of one of these fighters is an extremely personal rite of passage in the game. Players go deep on their player backgrounds and the world in which they play, which means it’s always been fertile ground for adaptation into another medium.
In 2015, Christian Linke, Creative Director at Riot Games, and Creative Designer Alex Yee decided they wanted to make something that honoured the passion of their players for this ever-expanding world. “When Alex and I were talking, we didn’t really have an idea of what exactly we were gonna make, it was just all about how can we finally get to know our champions as characters,” Linke tells Red Alert, in explaining how Arcane, the nine-episode animated drama from Riot Games and Fortiche Productions for Netflix, came to be.