Arcane: 6 years of work, 100 French animation specialists… How was the Netflix series created?

The undisputed success of 2021, Arcane surprised everyone when it was released online on Netflix. While adaptations from the video game universe are almost always unsuccessful, the transposition of the League of Legends universe into the series has been loved by insiders and neophytes alike.

Because the series can rely on a brilliantly written story, impeccable staging, badass characters and above all a stunning aesthetic world. And the animation work was provided by the French studio Fortice, which has already collaborated with Riot Games for other League of Legends projects.

Unsurprisingly, the partnership between Riot and Fortiche has been fruitful for Arcane, which won no less than nine awards – including Best Television Production (excluding Children’s) – at the Annie Awards.

If you’d like to learn more about the workings of Fortice Studios and the production of Arcane, be aware that a documentary series called “Bridging the Rift” is available starting August 4th. Five episodes will be broadcast one episode per week.

The first episode of “I Only Dream of Risky” about 25 minutes is now available League of Legends YouTube channel. Two caveats are in order: some strobe effects may disturb viewers and the documentary series is only available in English with French subtitles!

In this first episode, Arcane co-creator Christian Linke discusses the series’ creative process in partnership with French animation studio Fortice. The teams at Riot Games were hesitant at first, but the various clips already shot by Fortich and Christian’s ambitions finally convinced them to give this series project a chance.

The stakes are high: succeeding in a video game adaptation that will delight fans and interest neophytes. For this project, Fortiche hired the best animation specialists in France and increased its team from 30 employees to 100. It took no less than six years of work for Arcane to finally see the light of day.

If you missed the phenomenon, the first season of Arcane is still available on Netflix. You should know that a second burst of episodes is in the works.