The archive · Content & Film · Product decision · 2021–2022
Riot's 'Arcane' turns League of Legends lore into an Emmy-winning Netflix drama
Riot bets its biggest champions on prestige animation: Arcane tops Netflix in 52 countries and becomes the first streaming series to win animation's Emmy.
Riot Games
What it had to solve
League of Legends was one of the biggest games in the world, but its champions lived mainly as abilities inside five-versus-five matches. Riot Games wanted to extend the franchise into entertainment and partnered with Netflix on an animated series built around the game's characters rather than its mechanics.
How it works
Riot Games spent years building League of Legends into one of the world's most-played games, and its champions accumulated deep lore inside loading screens and cinematics. Arcane was the company's bet that those characters could carry a full drama: a nine-episode animated series, made with Netflix, that followed orphaned sisters Vi and Jinx onto opposite sides of a conflict between the gleaming city of Piltover and the oppressed undercity of Zaun.
The show was co-created by Christian Linke and Alex Yee, directed by Pascal Charrue and Arnaud Delord, and treated its source material as a cast rather than a ruleset: League's fighting champions became characters with childhoods, rivalries and motives. Premiering in November 2021, Arcane was designed to work as television for people who had never touched the game, while longtime players watched familiar faces reimagined in a painted, cinematic style.
The gamble paid off immediately. Arcane topped Netflix's charts in 52 countries at premiere, went on to win nine Annie Awards, and in September 2022 became the first streaming-exclusive series — and the first video-game show — to win the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program, part of a four-Emmy haul. The awards marked the moment a game company's original entertainment stopped being a marketing extra and started winning television's own prizes.
Why it lands
- The series made the game's city-states and champions the subject, so adaptation meant deepening characters rather than translating mechanics.
- Premium animation and an episodic drama structure signalled seriousness to both gaming and television audiences.
- Releasing on Netflix gave the show a global stage that matched League of Legends' worldwide player base.
- Keeping the game out of the foreground let newcomers watch without homework, which is why it could top charts in 52 countries.
What it did
Arcane topped Netflix's charts in 52 countries at its premiere and won nine Annie Awards. In 2022 it became the first streaming-exclusive series — and the first video-game show — to win the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program, taking four animation Emmys in total.
What you can take
Adapt the cast, not the mechanics: champions with years of accumulated lore, written as drama characters, served players and newcomers alike without explaining the game.
Since then
Netflix renewed Arcane in November 2021 while season one was still finishing its run, and season two premiered in November 2024. The show became a reference point for the wave of game-to-screen adaptations that followed — Variety pointed to it alongside Halo, Twisted Metal and HBO's The Last of Us — and demonstrated that a multiplayer game's lore could be treated as an entertainment property in its own right.
Sources
- Netflix's 'Arcane' Season 2 to Premiere in Fall 2024
- Netflix's Arcane is the first streaming series to win an Emmy award for animation
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