Video game adaptations have become a big part of the recent media landscape, and you can put a lot of that on Netflix. Along with the original Castlevania series, Riot Games and Fortiche’s Arcane became a big, award-winning event soon deemed a high point for adaptations, animation, and League of Legends. Season two arrives November 9.
io9 recently had the chance to talk with co-creator Christian Linke, who revealed production on the second season started just prior to the pandemic. A lot has changed between then and now, but what hasn’t are his goals for the show and its future.
Using Arcane to bring “real drama” to animation has always been a core focus for Riot and Fortiche, which Linke and fellow co-creator Alex Yee talked about during the first season’s behind the scenes videos. Ensuring the “characters and drama feel real” was just as important for this new season, and Linke further said the crew strived to push animation forward and embrace the medium’s strengths. “Animation can do anything,” he noted. “If you don’t [experiment]then why do animation at all?”
Game adaptations can be a tricky endeavor, and in Linke’s eyes, pose an “extra challenge” compared to adapting a book or movie. It Isn’t just that games are an interactive medium, but how a game’s characters are perceived also play a factor into things. He noted that what a player does with a character “becomes part of how they’re understood and viewed,” both in and out of their communities. But to truly know a character, you have to know where they’re from: Linke said playing a game is “vital” to the adaptation process, because there’s an “aspect of authenticity that’s impossible to replace.”
Pre-Arcane, Fortiche and Riot teamed on several music videos for League of Legends, the most famous of which was “Get Jinxed,” which Linke himself was involved in. The show doesn’t exist without that partnership, and he said that “just hiring someone with a lot of talent and money [wouldn’t] do the trick.” Not that this was ever up for debate, but he was frank in calling Arcane a “selfish” endeavor, since it let Riot “authentically do something for ourselves. This is the show that we wanted to see.”
Our interview with Linke was conducted prior to a recent Variety story claiming both seasons of Arcane cost a pretty $250 million combined to make. Within that same report, it was alleged Riot was struggling with getting other shows off the ground, including a supposed live-action miniseries. At the time of our talk, Linke said any potential animated follow-up would see Riot evolve as an studio. The aim is for future shows within that specific medium to have their own artistic style and be tailored “to the stories we want to tell specifically.” League of Legends has a lot of characters to pull from, and determining what they look like (and how stylized or realistic to be) are being discussed at Riot.
League turned 15 back in October, and Linke likened Riot’s approach to adapting its characters to what Marvel is currently doing outside of comics. The studio can look at fan discussions, its array of music videos, and even the spinoff games under its short-lived Riot Forge label as a means of gauging interest in who to bring to animation next. “It all comes down to where we want to focus: what’s our Iron Man or Thor?” he asked.
Any project, he continued, must cover three things: “What we think our audience will love, what we personally think is cool, and what our team is good at. […] If you’re not the right person for something, you shouldn’t do it, even if it makes sense for the audience.”
Arcane’s first trio of season two episodes hits Netflix on November 9, followed by “Act Two” November 16 and “Act Three” November 23.
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