Arcane makes history with Emmy win for Outstanding Animated Program

Hit League of Legends TV show Arcane has made history with its big Emmy win for Outstanding Animated Program at this year’s awards. It’s the first video game adaptation to win the big gong, as well as the first streaming series to take home the award.

Arcane has swept Hollywood’s award season when it comes to animation, and now it’s finally got the big one.

The League of Legends TV show, following sisters Powder (Jinx) and Vi, has taken home the Outstanding Animated Program prize at the Emmys, television’s night of nights. 

It makes Arcane the first video game adaptation to win an Emmy, as well as the first streaming-exclusive series according to Deadline. It won the prize ahead of Bob’s Burgers, Rick and Morty, The Simpsons, and Marvel’s What If…?

Honored doesn’t even begin to describe how we feel about winning the #Emmy for 𝑶𝒖𝒕𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑨𝒏𝒊𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝑷𝒓𝒐𝒈𝒓𝒂𝒎.

Thank you to our incredible team at @RiotGames and Fortiche, the @TelevisionAcad, and the greatest fans (yes, you) for making this possible. pic.twitter.com/xFNWt4eNc7

— Arcane (@arcaneshow) September 4, 2022

Co-creator Christian ‘Praeco’ Linke was taken aback when accepting the award on stage.

“Thank you for this. It’s a big deal for us as we come from video games. It’s been amazing to see the world embrace our characters and our stories so thanks to Netflix who believed in us from the beginning, thanks to Riot Games, who worked on the whole IP… and to all the people that have been with our game and League of Legends for the last 12 years or so who helped make it as big as it is now.”

“People spending money on our game content are the ones enabling us to chase ambitious ideas like Arcane in the first place. It really makes the difference,” he added later on Reddit.

Arcane won numerous awards earlier in the year, including sweeping the Annie Awards with nine wins, as well as three Outstanding Individual Achievement in Animation Awards at the Emmys weeks before the big ceremony.

Arcane’s second season is deep in production now despite animation cuts at Netflix earlier in the year. The League of Legends show was safe from the in-house axing, and the Emmy win is extra wind in Fortiche and Riot’s sails to give fans an even better experience in the next season.

The show is just the start of Riot when it comes to exploring League of Legends in cinema, with further projects in a Runeterra cinematic universe currently in exploration.