League of Legends is getting an animated series called Arcane

Riot Games has announced Arcane, an animated series set in the League of Legends universe with an extended trailer. The series was unveiled during the League of Legends 10th Anniversary celebrations, will be developed and produced internally by Riot, and is expected to release in 2020.

Like many of the announcements made during Riot's livestream so far, details are scarce as the project is still in its infancy. What we do know is that the story focuses characters from the cities of Piltover and its underbelly of Zaun.

Sadly, Riot wasn't able to share any more than that. Beyond the hint of where the series is set, we don't yet know who the main characters or villains will be. We can narrow it down, though, considering only a dozen or so champions come from Piltover and its underbelly of Zaun. Several characters made appearances in the trailer, including Jinx, Ekko, and Ezreal.

Given how (surprisingly) extensive LoL's lore and backstory is, an animated series actually makes a lot of sense. Over the past years, new champions have been introduced with stunning CG trailers that hint at LoL's expanded universe. An animated TV series sounds like a great amalgamation of League's worldbuilding and Riot's awesome animation team.

For other announcements from tonight's anniversary livestream, check out Riot's newly announced tactical FPS and its officially confirmed fighting game.

Steven Messner

With over 7 years of experience with in-depth feature reporting, Steven's mission is to chronicle the fascinating ways that games intersect our lives. Whether it's colossal in-game wars in an MMO, or long-haul truckers who turn to games to protect them from the loneliness of the open road, Steven tries to unearth PC gaming's greatest untold stories. His love of PC gaming started extremely early. Without money to spend, he spent an entire day watching the progress bar on a 25mb download of the Heroes of Might and Magic 2 demo that he then played for at least a hundred hours. It was a good demo.