Riot Games’ Virtual Day for Arcane: Act 3 was an hour of fun, laughter and exploration

The third and final act of Riot Games’ Arcane series was released on Netflix on Saturday (Nov 20). On the same day, Riot Games held a virtual event to celebrate its release.

The event was hosted in Gather Town— a platform where online events can be held in an 8-bit role-playing game-esque setting— and hosted streamers, esports casters and media makers from all over Southeast Asia as a thank-you for supporting and talking about Arcane. 

The event definitely took me by surprise. The virtual town had been designed to look like the city of Zaun from Arcane, and emulated the real-life Undercity Nights event that was happening simultaneously in the US. After a short introduction by one of Riot’s staff, I went off on my own to explore.

In the Food Market, there were Southeast Asian-inspired dishes with a League of Legends twist that our avatars could ‘eat’ like scuttle crab spring rolls and Bilgewater balut.

After my ‘meal’, I played some minigames. First, I manoeuvred the treacherous terrain to find the lab of Arcane’s main character Jinx.

Once I was in her lab, I met a fellow fan named Tony (who I was coincidentally twinning with). We solved some puzzles together and eventually found Jinx.

Though I could have explored the map further, I got distracted by Artist Alley. Eight digital artists were stationed here to give players speed portraits. I skipped the virtual concert by HONNE for this, but after the session I spoke to the streamer Miharu about the concert. She said “it was great, and it felt like (she) was at a bar in real life”.

After the speed drawing, there was little time to keep exploring, so I ended the session by speaking to some nearby players and staff about the event and how excited we were for the last act of Arcane. 

Overall, I was blown away by the amount of effort and detail that went into this virtual session. 

Between the personalised portraits, Southeast-Asian inspired food and even event-exclusive postcards and comics, every aspect of the map truly felt like a thank-you to Arcane’s fans. I got to meet so many cool people from across Southeast Asia, all because we were fans of Riot-owned games and the Arcane series. 

So if you haven’t watched Arcane yet, now’s the time. All episodes have just been released on Netflix and, if this promotional event is any indication, promise to be of extremely high quality.