In October 2019, Riot Games announced Arcane, an animated series based on its lore-laden League of Legends MOBA. Details were thin at the time—the reveal trailer is basically a montage of brief animated character clips laid over dramatic music—but one thing Riot did commit to was a 2020 release. On account of the recent pandemic scenario Riot said that it has made it impossible to achieve the planned 2020 release.
In a blog post on the Riot website, Riot Creative Development and IP Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street explained that due to the quarantine and COVID-19 pandemic, the entire production schedule was blown off course and the show won’t see the light of day for at least another year.
“We were really looking forward to bringing you the show this year, but we need to balance our excitement for the story with the safety and well-being of our teams and partners. I know this news is probably disappointing. We are disappointed. But Arcane is shaping up to be an amazing story and one we’ll share with you as soon as we can,” Street wrote.
Riot Games has managed to accomplish more in 2020 than a lot of other studios. League of Legends, Legends of Runeterra and Teamfight Tactics all see regular updates and patches. Valorant, the first person shooter with a heroic twist, was launched in early June and only had a few server issues to deal with.
He adds,”Creative development and production is hard, especially in a world where you can’t see your coworkers IRL. We have video meetings now, which help, but they are no substitute for being in a room where we can really get the creative energy flowing. Combine these issues, along with the technical difficulties of production at the international scale, and the problem becomes a lot bigger. Props to our amazing creative partner, Fortiche, who has continued to do everything they can to keep moving Arcane forward.”
