The long-awaited League of Legends's first animated series, Arcane, is coming to Netflix sometime this fall. There’s not much to glean off from the recently released 19-second trailer, but it gives us the first glimpse of the show. 

The fast-paced combat trailer opens with a fight between Vi and Jinx, who are deadly rivals in the League of Legends universe. It also featured mysterious characters that skated on the walls and wielded lightning power and staff weapon. 

Arcane is Netflix’s latest effort of tapping into the worlds of video games for new shows and movies. It would have debuted last year but was pushed to 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This delay now has it following the computer game Dota 2’s Dota: Dragon’s Blood  release on Netflix, which is League’s biggest rival.

Arcane’s Plotline

Set in the continent known as Runeterra in the world of League of Legends, two competing twin cities Piltover and Zaun, are obsessed with technology, but while Piltover’s steampunk-driven aesthetic and hextech technology has allowed it to flourish, the oppressed under city of Zaun’s unchecked experimentation led to a much darker outcome. 

The story follows the origins of two iconic League champions Vi and Jinx. For those new to the League’s complicated lore, Vi is a law enforcer who wields giant gauntlets, while Jinx is a terrorist with a penchant for explosives that will tear them apart.

In 2013, when Jinx’s character was released, her line “you think I’m crazy? You should see my sister!” had fans in a frenzy about whether Jinx and Vi were sisters. It was not confirmed until Riot Games design director Greg Street stated that the two were indeed sisters in an interview. 

The two sisters were initially criminals in the district of Zaun but eventually chose opposite paths and are now on opposite sides of the law. Arcane will probably explore what drove the two sisters apart and see a new champion. 

League of Legends Inspired Global Fervor and Fandom

The game was first released in 2009 and has since attracted millions of players, turning it into a billion-dollar revenue venture. Marc Merrill, co-founder, and president of Riot Games, credits their free-to-play strategy for the success of their game. 

When League of Legends was first pushed out for players to try live, things were looking bleak. Riot’s competition S2’s game Heroes of Newerth was pulling in double the number of peak players. But when Heroes of Newerth sold like a traditional box game at a fixed price, things took a turn. 

S2’s played switched over to Riot’s game because it was free and only required in-game purchases. A few years later, in 2011, Chinese gaming and internet giant Tencent Holdings purchased 97 percent of the company for $400 million.

Today, League of Legends is one of the most prominent Esports in the world that includes comic books, a digital card game, a mobile spinoff, and now an animated series.