59 Fun Facts About Arcane

Arcane is set in the universe of which video game?

League of Legends is Riot's online battle arena, yet the show needs no knowledge of it: IGN's reviewer scored season one a 10 having never played the game.

Which French animation studio produced Arcane?

Fortiche, a Paris studio, had made music videos for Riot since 2013, and that partnership grew into the series.

Who voices the adult Vi in Arcane?

Hailee Steinfeld voices the adult Vi, and the show sent players back to the character: Vi's pick rate in the game climbed within days of the premiere.

Which actress voices Jinx, and won an Annie Award for the episode 'When These Walls Come Tumbling Down'?

Ella Purnell won for the episode in which Jinx finally reunites with Vi, only for the sight of Caitlyn to sour it; Mia Sinclair Jenness voices the character as a child.

In Arcane, Vi's giant gauntlets were first built as a tool for which workers?

Miners: Jayce designed the Hextech gloves so workers in the fissures could dig without tiring; Vi grabs a pair before a factory raid and keeps them as boxing gloves.

In Arcane, Vi is short for which first name?

Violet is first spoken late in the third episode, and a season-two flashback shows it was Vander who suggested the name to her mother.

Who created Arcane?

Christian Linke and Alex Yee were longtime Riot staffers with no experience of making television when the company let them try a pilot; Pascal Charrue and Arnaud Delord directed season one.

What pushed Arcane's premiere back a year?

The COVID-19 pandemic: in June 2020 Riot said video meetings were no substitute for being in a room together and moved the show from 2020 to 2021.

Each Arcane season reached Netflix in three weekly batches known as what?

Acts: each season's episodes arrived three at a time over three weekends, so nobody could binge the whole run on day one.

Which band performs 'Enemy', Arcane's opening theme, with rapper JID?

Imagine Dragons had history with Riot: they recorded 'Warriors' for the game in 2014, seven years before 'Enemy' opened the show.

Who voices Jayce Talis, the inventor of Hextech?

Kevin Alejandro voices Jayce, who starts the show hauled before Piltover's council over his unsanctioned magic research and within a few years holds a seat on it.

In Arcane's second season, what can Ekko's Z-Drive do?

Rewind time: Ekko builds it while stranded in a parallel universe, and each pull winds the world back just four seconds, enough to disrupt Viktor in the finale.

Arcane's explosions, smoke and tears are mostly made with which technique?

2D animation: the show's animation director said effects are mostly done in 2D over 3D characters and digitally hand-painted backgrounds, which is why frames look like illustrations.

What is the name of the bar Vander runs in Zaun?

The Last Drop doubles as a music venue: the band behind the show's theme song cameos as its house band while Vi hunts Silco's lieutenant there in season one.

In season two, Vander is transformed into a wolf-like beast known by what name?

Warwick is Singed's work: he rebuilds Vander into a human-wolf hybrid, and the beast stops mid-attack when it recognises Jinx.

What is the name of the purple, mutagenic drug that Silco floods Zaun with?

Shimmer is first tested on a caged rat, which swells and kills the cat sent to hunt it; people who keep using it end up addicted and wasting away.

Ekko leads which revolutionary Zaunite group?

The Firelights sabotage Silco's drug trade and help its addicts recover; their leader's identity is a reveal, since Ekko was a childhood friend of Vi and her sister.

Who is the diminutive founder of Piltover who mentors Jayce and Viktor?

Heimerdinger ends up ousted by his own pupil: when he orders the dangerous Hexcore destroyed, Jayce engineers a vote that retires him from the council.

Ambessa, the war general who arrives late in Arcane's first season, hails from which nation?

Noxus is where she commands armies: Ambessa reaches Piltover after her son's death, set on hardening her daughter for the coming war with Zaun.

Singed's real name, revealed in season two, is what?

Corin Reveck was a disgraced Piltover academic, and every experiment he runs, the beast included, serves one aim: reviving his comatose daughter, Orianna.

Which Hollywood actress voices LeBlanc, leader of the Black Rose, in season two?

Minnie Driver voices the sorceress, who disguises herself as a captive's dead brother and, in the finale, is the one who kills Ambessa.

What is the name of the young orphan Jinx rescues and takes under her wing in season two?

Isha repays the rescue in the hardest way: she sacrifices herself, overloading Jinx's pistol with Hextech gems to stop the rampaging beast Vander has become.

What is the title of Arcane's first episode?

Welcome to the Playground opens far from play: two young sisters find their parents dead on a battle-scarred bridge, and the rebel leader Vander takes them in.

In Arcane's opening heist, what do Vi and her siblings steal from Jayce's penthouse?

A set of magical crystals: the youngest drops one, the blast wrecks part of the building, and the wreckage exposes Jayce's unsanctioned research to the council.

What are the names of Vi and Jinx's two adopted brothers, who die in the failed rescue of Vander?

Mylo and Claggor are killed by accident: their little sister sets off a bomb meant to help the rescue, and Vi's furious reaction drives the girl to Silco.

Which councilor secretly backs Jayce and Viktor's early Hextech experiments?

Mel Medarda shields the banned research from her fellow councilors, and the gamble pays off: within a few years Hextech has made Piltover rich.

In Arcane, what does Piltover's Progress Day celebrate?

Its founding: the Progress Day in season one is the city's 200th, and Jayce shelves a planned unveiling that day after his mentor warns the device is dangerous.

Where does Caitlyn find the adult Vi locked up in Arcane's first season?

Stillwater Hold had held Vi for years: Marcus, an enforcer on Silco's payroll, locked her away there, and Caitlyn frees her to help track Silco down.

What colour is the flare Vi gave her little sister, which the sisters use to reunite in season one?

Blue: Vi hands her the flare before leaving on the doomed rescue of Vander, and it stays unlit for years until her sister learns Vi is alive.

Who does Viktor accidentally kill while experimenting with the Hexcore in season one?

Sky was his assistant and childhood friend; guilt over her death makes Viktor beg Jayce to destroy the Hexcore, and her spirit accompanies him in season two.

In Arcane, what does Jayce offer Silco in exchange for handing over Jinx?

Zaun's independence is the cause Silco has chased since his youth, yet he wavers: he laments having to trade his adopted daughter for it, and Jinx overhears.

How does Silco die in Arcane's season one finale?

Jinx accidentally shoots him in a panic when he takes aim at Vi; with his last breath he tells her she is perfect, and she fully embraces her new identity.

What does Jinx build from the Hextech gemstone at the end of Arcane's first season?

A rocket launcher, built moments after she accepts the name Jinx: she fires it at the Piltover council chamber just as the council approves the peace deal.

Which member of Caitlyn's family dies when Jinx attacks the Piltover council in Arcane?

Her mother, Cassandra, a councilor, dies in the blast; the loss drives Caitlyn to lead a Hextech-armed strike team into the undercity to hunt Jinx.

In Arcane's second season, Ambessa maneuvers Caitlyn into which role?

Commander-in-chief of a city under martial law, a post Ambessa engineered: she had secretly orchestrated the memorial attack that pushed Piltover toward war.

In Arcane's second season, what name is given to the volatile anomaly found in the Hex Vault?

A wild rune is a term from Viktor's theory of magic run amok; touching it flings Ekko and the old professor into a parallel universe and Jayce into a ruined future.

In Arcane's alternate-timeline episode, whom does Ekko fall in love with?

Powder never became Jinx in that timeline: Vi died in the penthouse robbery, Hextech was never invented, and Vander and Silco stayed friends.

Who is revealed to be a spy and sabotages Jayce's plan in Arcane's series finale?

Maddie, the young enforcer Caitlyn had been dating, was serving Ambessa all along; her shot at Caitlyn is deflected back at her by a councilor's barrier spell.

In Arcane, the hooded mage who saved Jayce as a child turns out to be whom?

Viktor's future self, full of remorse for the dead world his plan produced: Jayce uses that revelation to talk Viktor out of it, and the two vanish destroying the anomaly.

At the end of Arcane, who joins the Piltover council as Zaun's representative?

Sevika, voiced by Amirah Vann, was Silco's right-hand woman and spent two seasons fighting Piltover before taking a seat on its council.

Arcane became the first Netflix series to win which Primetime Emmy?

Outstanding Animated Program had eluded Netflix even with BoJack Horseman and Big Mouth nominated in earlier years; Arcane was also the first show from any streaming service to win it.

Arcane's Netflix premiere was timed to follow which event?

An esports world championship final: the game's 2021 title match ended on November 6 and the first three episodes went live right after it, handing the show a ready-made audience.

Variety reported that Arcane had set which record for an animated series?

Most expensive ever made: Variety put the two seasons at about $250 million to produce and promote, though Riot co-founder Marc Merrill later said the real budget was 60 to 75 percent of that.

What did Riot's CEO promise when confirming Arcane's second season?

A shorter wait: season one took six years to make, he said; the bad news was that it would miss 2022, and the season finally arrived in November 2024.

Riot streamed Arcane's first episode live, with free in-game rewards for viewers, on which platform?

Twitch viewers earned free rewards in five Riot games just for watching, and Arcane became the first Netflix show that streamers were allowed to rebroadcast to their own audiences.

In the game behind Arcane, what is the name of Jinx's shark-styled heavy weapon?

Fishbones, named for its shark-inspired design, sits beside Pow-Pow the minigun and Zapper the shock pistol, and a Fishbones gun charm in Valorant rewarded fans who watched Arcane's premiere live.

Which actor voices Viktor, Jayce's research partner, in Arcane?

Harry Lloyd, seen in Legion and Brave New World, voices the Zaun-born inventor whose drive to perfect humanity steers the second season.

Which Chinese streaming service released Arcane's first season simultaneously with Netflix?

Tencent Video had the inside track: its parent company, Tencent, owns Riot Games, so the studio's owner carried the show in China while Netflix took the rest of the world.

How did Arcane season two episodes leak in August 2024?

A vendor hack: Netflix confirmed a post-production partner had been compromised, and Variety named it as Iyuno, a firm that dubs and subtitles shows; footage from several other Netflix titles leaked with it.

Which distributor acquired the home video rights to Arcane in 2024?

GKIDS bought the disc rights from Riot, not Netflix: Riot paid to make Arcane and only licensed it to the streamer, so the home release was Riot's to sell.

Which singer performed 'Lonely Warrior', the Chinese theme song released for Arcane?

Eason Chan's song became a craze among Chinese schoolchildren, so much so that media dubbed it the new nursery rhyme and the singer joked that he had apparently released a children's song.

Arcane won which inaugural category at The Game Awards 2022?

Best Adaptation was created in 2022 for films, shows, books and comics based on games, and Arcane beat Uncharted, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and The Cuphead Show! to it.

Who wrote the 2025 Arcane prequel novel Ambessa: Chosen of the Wolf?

C. L. Clark sends a younger Ambessa to war with her own cousin, a former confidant who knows her bloody past and contests her claim to lead the family clan.

Jinx's first appearance outside a Riot game came in November 2021 as an outfit in which title?

Fortnite added Jinx days before Arcane premiered, the first time a Riot champion joined another studio's game, and Riot's own titles arrived on the Epic Games Store alongside her.

Arcane is set on which fictional world, home to Piltover and Zaun?

Runeterra got room to grow in 2014, when Riot scrapped a backstory written only to explain in-game battles, saying it had fostered creative stagnation.

What nickname does Vi give Caitlyn in Arcane?

Cupcake is what Vi starts calling Caitlyn while they hunt for evidence in the undercity, and she is still using it in the series finale.

What position does Grayson, voiced by Shohreh Aghdashloo, hold in season one?

Grayson is later succeeded by Marcus, who is secretly working for Silco.

Which rock veteran sings 'What Could Have Been' over the final moments of Arcane's first season?

Sting sings it with violinist Ray Chen as the finale ends, the title mourning the peace between the two cities that collapses in the last seconds.

Which Belgian star ended a long health break to record 'Ma Meilleure Ennemie' with Pomme for Arcane's second season?

Stromae had cut short his Multitude tour in 2023 for health reasons, and this French-language duet, released the day the final episodes landed, was his comeback.