Riot’s strategy to League of Legends lore has all the time been a bit… versatile. Champion backstories have been repeatedly retconned, and the complete premise of the sport has modified a few occasions since launch (bear in mind when it was a literal sport?). Extra lately, because the Runeterra universe has expanded with books, spin-off video games, and the TV present Arcane, inconsistencies have flourished, and it has been more and more troublesome for followers to level to an precise canon.
Effectively, that is about to vary. In a brand new video, Riot’s head of IP artistic Laura De Younger explains that, going ahead, the aim shall be to make sure all future League of Legends-related content material is canon and matches collectively, and to resolve inconsistencies wherever potential.
“Going ahead from at the moment, all new storytelling goes to be a part of one shared canon, slightly than a jumble of various experiences which are related however inconsistent,” says De Younger. “And our aim is to make sure that main occasions and our tales in addition to the essence of what makes a champion who they’re shall be mirrored throughout all the pieces Riot makes”
She admits it will not be a fast course of, however extra of a gradual realignment (and presumably a firmer hand over issues just like the Riot Forge video games, made by builders exterior Riot). There shall be some retconning, however it will not be a sweeping reboot of the setting—as a lot as potential the aim is to protect already established characters and ideas.
Which means altering how the crew approaches fleshing out the story too. Quick tales, for instance, are largely out—they was one of many greatest methods lore was established in League of Legends, however within the video Riot admits that almost all of the playerbase would not learn them. Going ahead, they’re going to be specializing in video games, TV, and different extra visible mediums as an alternative. Equally, the cinematics that kick off every season will now all the time depict canon occasions, as an alternative of wavering between story moments and scenes extra akin to throwing all of your motion figures collectively.
An fascinating final result of this shift in technique is that Arcane is now formally fully canon—the present represents the true origin of these characters, in addition to massive world-building parts just like the creation of Hextech. It has been unclear because the present got here out whether or not it represented a type of alternate tackle Runeterra or not, given a few of its larger clashes with current recreation lore and its very completely different tone of storytelling. However it positively is sensible to make it canon—it has been an enormous mainstream success, and can symbolize lots of people’s first step into the world of Runeterra.
Presumably even issues just like the band KDA and the assorted bizarre pores and skin themes (resembling cyberpunk and D&D-inspired variations of the champions) shall be included on this—for some time now, Riot has been seeding the thought of those alternate takes on current characters being a part of a wider multiverse of various variations of Runeterra. I will not spoil it, however that idea has been bolstered additional in a current spin-off.
Multiverse teases aren’t the one a part of this that calls to thoughts the MCU. Within the final 4 years, Riot’s been making a fairly main push to increase the scope of its setting past one videogame and into a serious shared universe, of the type each model needs to have lately. Alongside the way in which, it is perhaps realized how troublesome it’s to maintain all of your geese neatly in a row. It is in all probability a bit late within the day to simply now be deciding to have a coherent canon, however it actually reinforces the course the corporate has been taking—and doubtless factors to even larger plans to come back.
In fact, crucial implication of all that is that, because of their Arcane cameo, the band Think about Dragons are actually formally canon in Runeterra. They will have their very own film earlier than you realize it.