• “Arcane,” a TV adaptation of Riot Games’ “League of Legends,” is back on Netflix.
• The series was created by Christopher Linke and Alexander Yee, two Riot veterans with no television experience.
• “Arcane” had a supposedly high price tag, but landed well with fans and critics alike.

In 2010, “Arcane” co-creator Christian Linke needed to make a change.

The German-born musician spent years playing bass in the German rock band Panik and working as a songwriter and producer. But in 2010, he began to have doubts about the music business (and, in turn, the longevity of his career), as he watched musicians using personal computers to produce their own songs.

So he quit music, packed his bags and moved to Los Angeles. When he arrived, he got a customer service job he had found on Craigslist. Although he didn’t know it at the time, that job set him on the path to a career that would lead him to his first Emmy Award 12 years later.

The concert was at Riot Games, a young video game company founded in 2006 that had released its debut title “League of Legends” the previous year. Today, “League” is one of the most played PC games in the world, and Riot announced that it had reached 180 million monthly active players in 2021. But back then, Riot was small and “League” was still a new title. . And luckily for Linke, an early “League of Legends” player, he had thousands of unanswered German customer support tickets languishing in the queue.

“Somehow they hired me,” Linke told Business Insider. “I think because, of all the people they interviewed, I was the only one who actually spoke German.”

Fourteen years later, the now creative director went from answering fines to directing one of the most successful video game adaptations on television. “Arcane,” which Linke created with fellow Rioter Alexander Yee, premiered on Netflix in November 2021. By the time its first season finished airing, there were already accumulated millions of hours of viewing and Hit number 1 on Netflix’s global top 10 English TV list.

It wasn’t a huge surprise when Netflix announced it had renewed “Arcane” for a second season the minute the first ended. apart from winning four emmy awardsincluding an outstanding animated program, featured near universal critical acclaim. For good reason: Its character-driven story and distinctive visual identity, courtesy of French animation studio Fortiche, make it accessible and fascinating television for newcomers and long-time “League” fans alike.

But before the show was a hit, Linke and Yee began working on a passion project in 2015, one that grew out of their tenure at Riot and the relative creative freedom they were afforded during the company’s rise.

“When we started the project, no adaptation had been successful,” Linke told BI of his and Yee’s plan to create a series based on the game. “But it didn’t really matter because the desire was always very clear. It was like, ‘We want this to exist.'”

Linke has played many roles at Riot and has grown his career at the company.

When Linke started at Riot in 2010, his remit quickly expanded beyond customer support. After a stint in the billing department, he eventually moved into data analytics, working cross-functionally across different teams.

But in 2011, he saw an opportunity for the company to invest more in music projects. character theme songs, music videosand bands inspired by “League” and, in turn, draw on their own creative experience.

“No one was asking for it,” Linke said, but no one was stopping him either. By 2015, Linke had built a team under him and had proven his worth within the company. What he was missing was a challenge.

The same was true for Yee, who had moved into creative design at the company. Together, after years of playing in different creative environments within the “League” universe, they began conceptualizing the television show that would become “Arcane.”

It was unprecedented work at Riot, which at the time had not yet expanded into any traditional film or television projects.

“We really had to take baby steps,” Linke said. “We not only had to develop the creativity, but also how to convince leaders who had never worked on a television show or invested in a television show. So a lot of this was starting with the basics.”

That included animation and dialogue tests — “We’d never heard our characters speak,” Linke said — as well as crafting the show’s story. After about a year and a half of work, the company committed to making a pilot in 2016, and it clearly worked out well for them in the end.

Still, Linke and Yee took risks along the way, chief among them being a bet on French production studio Fortiche. Before “Arcane,” the studio had worked on music videos and promotional materials for Riot and artists like Gorillaz, as well as some television projects. But none matched the scale of what “Arcane” would become: nine episodes in its first season, animated with a quality more reminiscent of film than television.

“People were very concerned about this, but what Fortiche had that money can’t fix is ​​passion,” Linke said. “I knew they would put their lives on hold to make the most of their career with this project, and I’ve worked with other animation studios where that’s simply not the case. It’s a job, but Fortiche had something to prove.”

‘Arcane’ was an expensive labor of love that Riot hasn’t replicated yet, but it’s a great proof of concept

Nine years after Linke and Yee began working on “Arcane” in 2015, the series ends after two nine-episode seasons. The project did not come without significant expense: Fortiche’s quality animation meant that production proceeded at a slower pace, more typical of animated films than animated television.

Citing sources familiar with the production, Variety It was recently reported that the show’s first season cost more than $80 million to make, and the second nearly $100 million to make. (Riot did not immediately respond to BI’s request for comment on the reported cost of “Arcane.”)

Even if Riot doesn’t make a profit directly from the series, that may not be the company’s main goal anyway. Film and television are not Riot Games’ core business; video games like “League of Legends” are. A really good TV series like “Arcane” not only attracts current players who can spend money on in-game cosmetics, but it also brings new eyes to the franchise. Real life cosmetics, such as The second season of “Arcane” arrives with Fenty BeautyIt probably doesn’t hurt either.

“Arcane” remains Riot’s most brilliant and successful adaptation. By putting the first major “League” adaptation in the hands of people who knew it best and cared about getting it right, “Arcane” sets a precedent for how to make something beloved by fans and critics alike. High production costs and a long schedule reportedly gave them the time and space to do so, even if, as Linke said Washington Post Before the first season, it meant burning a “huge hole in Riot’s wallet.”

Ultimately, Linke says the program was the product of a “selfish desire.” The fact that it’s motivated by passion and not pragmatism is why it’s so good.

“We love the game,” he said. “We wanted to see those characters come to life. That’s all. That’s enough to say this should exist for us.”

“Arcane” Season 2, “Act One” Is Currently Airing netflix. The second part premieres on Saturday, November 16.