League of Legends is one of the most popular multiplayer games in the world and Riot Games took the game to new heights with the animated Netflix series, Arcane. The show was released in 2021 and was very well-received by fans and even those unfamiliar with the game and now has its separate following.
There are different timelines and universes in the League and Riot Games has confirmed one important fact. Riot Games has confirmed that League of Legends and Arcane, the series showing origin stories of champions such as Jinx, Caitlyn, Vi, Jayce, and Viktor is now part of the canon.
Arcane Is Now Officially League of Legends Canon, Riot Confirms
Arcane which was in its own continuity is now the official story and a part of the mainline canon. Developer RiotMeddler confirmed this by posting the update on a thread dedicated to the lore update in the League of Legends subreddit. He wrote. “Arcane is canon. League is also in that same canon.”
Riot Games also confirmed that two titles, League of Legends and Arcane are canon through a post on League of Legends’ official X/Twitter handle where the developers gave fans updates on quickplay, language selection, lore, and a few other things.
.@RiotBrightmoon and @RiotMeddler are back with updates on lore📚, Quickplay⚔️, Blue Essence Emporium💎, and language select🌏.
And @neolexical gives us a sneak peak at some new champs 🎨🔥and everyone's favorite scorpion🦂. pic.twitter.com/q2BC44K2je
— League of Legends (@LeagueOfLegends) October 12, 2023
Laura “Poisonpixxi” Deyoung Head of IP Creative at Riot Games shared the update on lore saying,
All new storytelling is going to be a part of one shared canon rather than a jumble of different experiences that are similar but inconsistent. Our goal is to ensure that major events and stories as well as the essence of what makes a champion who they are will be reflected across everything that Riot makes.
Arcane is set in the gleaming City of Progress Piltover and the undercity district of Zaun. The confirmation of Arcane being a part of the canon holds several possibilities to the lore of the franchise, which has been quite fascinating to the fans and Riot can now expand with the sequel of the Netflix series or spin-off games.
However, Laura “Poisonpixxi” Deyoung acknowledged that it would not be easy to get to that state as there are still differences between Arcane and other lore of League of Legends. She said,
Getting to that consistent state is not going to be a sudden flip of a choice, but a gradual process. This doesn’t mean we are going to go back to retcon every champion or story we have told but every time we touch a part of a League universe, we’re going to take a beat to ask ourselves where the inconsistent threads are and work towards weaving them together so the world makes sense.
This is going to take time but we believe the payoff for getting this right will be absolutely worth it.
Following the update, there were questions raised about how Arcane creators would work with developers at Riot Games in the League of Legends subreddit. Developer RiotPraeco shared their take on the question saying that games and narrative efforts like TV and film are developed very differently and the creative needs of the game are very different to those of Arcane.
RiotPraeco further added,
So you have to impose quite a few changes to align certain decision-making, while also trying to maximize the potential of both expressions. This shit is very, very hard, and there is no studio in the world that has done this well yet. Arcane was the first time Riot ever tried to put together something purely narrative — especially at that scale.
Arcane has seen massive success since its release as it garnered record-breaking views just a week after its release and is hailed as the greatest video game adaptation ever.
This canon confirmation might not mean much to non-League of Legends fans but for those who have followed the game and its lore, this is very intriguing and adds extra depth to it.
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