WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Arcane, streaming now on Netflix.
Arcane is Netflix's newest animated series, a venture with Riot Games and Fortiche Production to bring League of Legends to the streaming service. The series -- deftly animated, well-written and imbued with life by a talented cast -- is quietly a triumph for video game adaptations, an infamously difficult type of source material to successfully translate to film or television.
And it does this by focusing on being a show itself instead of just a League of Legends adaptation. Arcane isn't the first video game adaptation, but it might be one of the very best because, instead of simply trying to recreate the game it's based on, it tells an original and compelling story of its own using those pieces.
One of the inherent challenges of adapting a video game is how to bring elements of the gaming experience to the new iteration. Sometimes, this takes the form of extended shout-outs to the source material, while in others -- such as in the Dwayne Johnson and Karl Urban-starring Doom film -- the resolution is simply to recreate the game's visuals in live-action. But there are very few that actually use the game's setting as a springboard for something different and are designed to stand more on their own, which is what Arcane accomplishes. It uses the world to tell a unique story that still fits within the previously established world and it doesn't waste time focusing just on what fans already know.
League of Legends itself is a largely plot-less game. While there is a distinct-looking world and endearing characters, there's no real narrative at the center of the game's experience. It's player-vs-player match-ups, a MOBA designed for replayability against a horde of faceless other players from around the world. It explains why players have become so attached to the characters -- they've spent enough time embodying them -- but the game never stops to explain its world. It could be said to be style over substance in terms of character development, as additions are typically brought in to expand the character roster and ways to actually play the game. The function is the primary concern when looking at the characters within the game itself, not their place in the overarching (and largely unconnected) meta-plot.
But with Arcane -- by moving to a period before the characters have fully developed and delving into human beings they once were before they became the champions of the series --it finds the perfect way to embrace the world without being lost to it. Sure, there are Easter eggs and visual signifiers of the characters' fates, but it's played as deliberate character development. Vi and Powder have attributes and skills and passions that inform their core-game personalities and methodology. Powder's bombs are an obvious key to her eventual abilities when she's grown into Jinx by the time of the game, but Arcane delves into where the concept of building these came from and how they came to represent triumph and trauma. It takes elements from the game and uses them to reveal engaging layers within the show's narrative itself.
It's the same with the rest of the cast as well, which means the show effectively works as a perfect prequel. It takes young versions of established characters and finds the humanity that led them on that path. Arcane resists any temptation to just be fan-service for the sake of fan-service, using those Easter eggs and pieces of foreshadowing effectively enough for non-fans to simply accept them as interesting elements of the character. Jace, Viktor, Vi and Powder all quietly tease their eventual selves by the time of the game, but the show isn't focused on that. It instead chooses to put the spotlight on the people they were before League of Legends and actually commits to telling their story in a refreshingly authentic way.
Unlike other videogame adaptations, Arcane uses the pieces to tell its own story set within its world, as opposed to simply recreating the experience. Having Riot so involved in the development definitely gave the production an edge, but all credit to the show's creators for figuring out that keeping the spirit of the world while actually committing to a story with its characters would make for a good video game adaptation.
To see a good video game adaptation, Arcane is streaming now on Netflix.