“Arcane’s Vision: How Riot Games Empowered Creators to Break Boundaries”

Arcane may have concluded, yet it continues to resonate within us, particularly due to several heartbreaking character fatalities. Interestingly, Riot was once again supportive of Fortiche’s decisions to eliminate characters as needed.

Major spoilers for Arcane ahead, so please refrain from reading unless you’ve finished the series.

“Riot was open to telling whatever story we chose with any of the characters,” shares Arcane creator Amanda Overton. “We would ask, ‘Can we eliminate Jayce and Viktor?’ ‘Absolutely.’ There were no restrictions on our storytelling, which, in my view, was the perfect approach for them, as we’re transitioning a game into a different format—television—and we wanted to be free to create the best possible adaptation.”

League of Legends, the game that Arcane is based on, offers a vast and intricate lore for the writers to explore, yet it has been invigorating to see how much creative liberty Riot has afforded them. The writers choose which aspects of the lore they wish to adapt, and while this may create slight inconsistencies in canon, it ultimately enhances the quality of the series. Rigid adherence to lore can lead to intriguing fan theories being validated as well.

“That support from [Riot’s] end truly empowered us to create characters that are complicated, engaging, dark, and vulnerable, whose destinies we had to determine based on what would be most satisfying for the show itself, rather than focusing on what might be appealing in another format,” Overton clarifies. She also mentions how long they have had the show’s concluding scenes planned. “The Vi-Jinx moment, the last moment shared between them, is nearly identical to what we drafted six years ago.”

In an actual game of League of Legends, all champions respawn and return to the fight another day, but a television series needs to establish consequences. We might not become attached to deaths unless they are definitive. While we all hope for Jinx’s survival, especially if future League of Legends adaptations explore multiverse scenarios, it is important to accept and move forward.

To delve deeper into our thoughts on the series, check out our Arcane season 2 review.

I’m Issy, a freelance writer you may occasionally find here covering news for GamesRadar. I have always been passionate about gaming, but I discovered how to effectively write about it while pursuing my Film and TV degrees at the University of Warwick and contributing to the student publication, The Boar. After graduation, I worked at TheGamer before heading the news section at Dot Esports. Currently, you can find me freelancing for various outlets like Rolling Stone, NME, Inverse, and more. I appreciate horror, narrative-driven tales, and indie games, primarily gaming on my PS5. At present, I’m focused on clearing my backlog and enjoying Dishonored 2.