Riot is releasing a 5-part documentary on the making of Arcane

Key art for Riot's Arcane — (Image credit: Riot Games)

League of Legends spinoff Arcane turned out way better than many expected, ending up as a genuine hit on Netflix (#1 for three weeks after launching, and top 10 in 52 countries) and introducing Riot's universe to a wider audience. Reaction was such that the show's been confirmed for a second season, and Riot has bought a chunk of the animation studio behind it.

Now Riot has announced 'Bridging the Rift', a documentary about the making of Arcane. Five episodes will be broadcast on YouTube, uploaded in a weekly cadence from Thursday August 4 onwards at 4 pm BST / 8 am PT / 11 am ET. A trailer for the series is above.

The doc promises to go behind-the-scenes on the creation of the show from the start of the process right up to the global release. As one of the creators notes in the trailer: "there's enough videogames where the audience asks for a movie or a show for years and years and years... and then it sucks."

Well, Arcane did not suck, and it's even been picking up gongs: it recently won nine Annie Awards, and is up for more at the Emmies later this year. Probably my favourite thing about Arcane, though, is that in the weeks following the show's release, the pick rate for the LoL characters involved skyrocketed.

Arcane season 2 doesn't yet have a release date, but there's everything we know about it.

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."