League of Legends has lost the one thing that makes Arcane so great
Riot GamesArcane started as a spinoff series for League of Legends, taking the story behind characters and environments from the game and fleshing them out. However, it’s at the point where Arcane has vastly outclassed the storytelling of the game it came from, and it’s time for League of Legends to sit down and take some notes.
On the whole, Arcane is a hard act to follow. Season 2 is the most expensive animated series ever made, and its unique sense of style and flair brings a lot to the table. But that style wouldn’t mean much if it didn’t have the substance of the original universe to work off of.
There was a point in League of Legends where, when characters were released, it was abundantly clear how they related to the rest of Runeterra, the larger world that League of Legends takes place in. Riot’s faith in its own unique worldbuilding has long since faded, and I hope Arcane proves that League of Legends abandoning its own universe was the wrong decision.
The shambling corpse that is the League of Legends universe
If you’re someone who doesn’t play League of Legends, you’d probably watch Arcane and assume there are more stories like this in the game. And, while that was true at one point, it isn’t now.
Whether it be tales of ancient Shurima, with champions like Nasus, Renekton, Xerath, Zilean, and Azir all having their unique place in the story of a long-lost civilization reminiscent of ancient Egypt, or the clash between the ancient primal gods of the frosty Freljord vs the inevitable interdimensional threat of the Void, these stories do exist in League of Legends. Even if they’re rarely showcased.
Riot GamesHowever, they feel like dust-caked tomes that have been sat on a shelf for eons, with small bits of their lore being unearthed every once in a while to make new characters if Riot remembers those ancient texts exist.
Aurora aside, there aren’t any new champions that feel like they’ve had a real impact on the League of Legends universe and truly added something. Unless K’Sante terrorizing solo queue and pro play for the past 2 years counts.
It’s gotten to the point where LoL literally ripped a character out of the show and put her in the game with Ambessa Medarda.
Hell, many of Arcane’s original characters have shown up Riot in the storytelling department. Even minor characters like the mysterious Vastayan informant Lest or those on Caitlyn’s task force are infinitely more interesting than the new champions that League of Legends’ devs have come up with.
What makes this worse is that even TFT knows it, as they’re choosing Arcane’s characters over existing LoL champions to put in their autochess spinoff. It’s great for Arcane, but a really, really bad look for League of Legends itself.
The vast majority of League of Legends characters released in the past three years have felt so… disconnected.
Hwei, Briar, Naafiri, Milio, K’Sante, Nilah, Bel’Veth, Vex, Zeri, Smolder: All of these champions have released in the past 3 years. I couldn’t tell you where they fit into Runeterra beyond the small scope of their initial release, and League of Legends is my job. These champions come out, get their own small origin story, and are then left to rot without much connection to the universe as a whole.
Riot GamesThe same is true of reworks, with them often being used to retcon old lore rather than build upon their existing story. For instance, Gangplank dying and coming back to life missing an arm is one of the only times a full-scale visual update has given a champion’s story a reason to evolve rather than just retconning or revising old lore. That’s a damn shame.
Arcane has gained a life of its own, something that exists separate from League of Legends in a lot of ways. It changes the way you look at those characters when returning to the game, and it’s a testament to just how good Arcane is. But, it also lays bare just how out of touch the modern day version of LoL is from the stories that originally defined it.
Take pride in your own creation
Champions take years to make at this point, with LoL only getting a few new characters annually. The fact that so many of their releases lack impact and staying power is a massive waste. These characters don’t interact with each other or existing people and places in the universe.
You can see inklings of it in a character like Bel’Veth, someone who was meant to be a sign of the end times, the Void’s takeover of Runeterra. An assimilation of hundreds of thousands of human minds consumed and brought into an unholy union, all of their consciousness converted into raw information and adopted by a previously unknowable force of destruction. This knowledge made Bel’Veth just human enough to get a face, christening her as the figure that represents the major threat bubbling just below the surface, a ticking time bomb waiting to consume everything.
Sounds cool, right?
Yeah, she’s a floppy stingray with a human head that dashes around a whole bunch and slaps people real fast with her tentacles. Her ultimate, the big ability meant to define her kit and playstyle, has her chomping on coral. The way she plays is genuinely comical. From a gameplay and storytelling standpoint, she was a flop.
The Void’s threat has fizzled since then, with no new champions or characters mentioning its existence since. The Void will certainly rear its ugly head eventually, but Bel’Veth’s failure put a pin on one of the most compelling concepts in the game.
It’s a shame when gambles like this don’t pay off, especially because you can see that impact on future champions. League of Legends’ lore is so good that the devs often seem afraid of tainting it and instead avoid it almost entirely.
Rather than taking pride in their own universe, Riot seems more focused on creating events around skins that take characters to other places outside of Runeterra. These are safer bets, sure, but they also make the universe that League of Legends takes place in feel stagnant and unmoving. Most of the best stories about the world of Runeterra itself were told by devs from almost a decade ago, Arcane’s source material included.
They let Runeterra rot while they chase trends in our world, entirely discarding the spirit of what attracted people to League of Legends in the first place.
Riot GamesDon’t get me wrong; events based around skin lines like Anima Squad, Spirit Blossom, and Star Guardian deserve to exist. They’re good in their own right, and they clearly make Riot a ton of money. But the world of League of Legends shouldn’t have to be sacrificed at the altar in exchange for it, with Arcane showing the boundless potential for what Runeterra already offers.
However, there is a distinct turning point and a valid reason why Riot may hesitate to support their own universe, one that goes beyond the flop of one mere character like what happened with Bel’Veth.
How terribly ironic that the event called The Ruination would be the one that brought the League of Legends universe to its knees. What was meant to be a way for characters to come together against a greater threat wound up being the moment Riot gave up on the very world their characters were fighting to save.
Books, cinematics, an entire visual novel event, tons of skins, an entire spinoff game, and four new champions all made for an event Riot has swept under the rug. Viego’s threat came and went like nothing ever happened after he was built up as Ruined King, a constant threat in League of Legends lore for over 10 years.
Riot GamesThis event was, by most regards, a failure. The new take on its characters, the way in which it brought villains and heroes together for a ragtag team to take down the forces of evil, was quickly forgotten and retconned outside of their skins. Nothing really changed. There’s a chance that, even if you’re reading this as an avid League of Legends player, you forgot this event existed.
If you’re interested in the ways that the Ruination itself fell short, LoL lorekeepers Necrit and TBSkyen made a 40 minute video on it, but it truly feels like the last time Riot tried to do anything new with the universe. That doesn’t mean it isn’t worth trying something new again, though.
Riot’s focus has been on taking what started with League of Legends and building it out, creating spinoff games, and using the seeds planted almost a decade ago with old LoL characters to create something new and incredible. But that process has excised the spirit that brought these great stories to life in the first place and resulted in Riot Forge, their publishing house for smaller spinoff games, being shuttered entirely.
League of Legends has clearly lost confidence in its own IP, which is a shame because that’s the one thing that makes Arcane so great. The showrunners’ clear confidence in the substance the League of Legends universe provides is the basis in which all of the series’ success is built on, and you won’t find a hint of that in the game it came from.
Even as series spinoffs embrace the unique aspects of what Runeterra has to offer, the world rots in League of Legends itself as they focus on chasing trends and selling skins.
I hope we see that same spirit, that same confidence return to the game itself. I hope we finally get to see a war between threats from the Void and the gods of the Freljord come to a head. I hope we get to see ancient Shurima in all its glory. I hope we get to see the story of League of Legends reach its true potential, to sow the seeds of the next Arcane and inspire stories that will be told for decades.
I hope Riot has the same vision and takes matters into their own hands rather than letting a series like Arcane haunt League of Legends as a vision of what it could have become.