Riot's Plans After Arcane Hinted At In New Report

Arcane Season 2 is in full swing, but it’s a bittersweet moment as fans know this will be the last season for Netflix’s League of Legends adaptation. However, it appears Riot Games may not be done in the animated space just yet.

Arcane is Riot Games’ first foray into the movie and TV space, with the animated series bringing to life the stories of some of League of Legends’ most iconic champions in a stunning visual style from animation studio Fortiche. The series is densely packed with world-building, origin stories, and lore that has drawn in fans worldwide, some who are familiar with Riot’s games and many who are not. Co-creator Christian Linke confirmed earlier in 2024 that Arcane Season 2 would be the last for the series but that the team had many more ideas in development set in the League of Legends world.

2 New League of Legends Adaptations Potentially Revealed

Not much is known about these potential sequels and spin-offs from Riot Games, although a new report has shed some light. In a recent Variety article, Riot’s co-founder Marc Merrill revealed some of the plans the studio has enacted beyond Arcane. The executive revealed that Riot has purchased an “entire season’s worth of scripts” for a live-action series based on League of Legends IP. The series is being written by Justin Piasecki, the screenwriter behind Riz Ahmed and Lily James’ recent film Relay. What’s notable about this information is that the League of Legends series will allegedly be live-action rather than animated, which would break new ground for the IP.

Variety also provided another detail about one of the projects Linke has in the works after Arcane, with the outlet reporting a “feature animation project” from the co-creator, is currently being considered. Linke has hinted in press interviews for Arcane Season 2 that some of the ideas they’ve been thinking about involve continuations of characters’ stories from Arcane. This suggests that an animated feature film, potentially in collaboration with Fortiche, may be the form that an Arcane sequel takes.

Arcane’s Budget May Have Shifted Riot’s Strategy

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This variation in styles could be in reaction to the other news that came from Variety’s report, which revealed Arcane is the most expensive animated series ever produced. Two seasons of the Netflix animation, comprising 18 episodes, reportedly cost $250 million to produce. While Arcane has been a resounding success for the company, earning high viewership numbers and awards at the Emmys and Annies, financially it is unlikely to recoup its budget.

This could be the reason Riot is looking at experimenting with different mediums for further adaptations of its video game IP. Animated feature films and live-action series have different budget expectations and could also lead to different revenue streams, like box office and licensing returns, so this may be the reason Riot is looking at different genres beyond the beloved format it has established with Arcane.

Arcane Season 2 will release its final episodes on November 16 and November 23 on Netflix.

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Arcane is an animated series developed by Alex Yee and Christian Linke that follows a the story of Piltover and Zaun, two pivotal locations in the League of Legends universe. The first season follows the stories of Jynx and Vi, as well as Jayce and Viktor.

Release Date

November 6, 2021

Cast

Hailee Steinfeld , Ella Purnell , Kevin Alejandro , Katie Leung , jason spisak , Toks Olagundoye , Harry Lloyd , JB Blanc , Reed Shannon , Mick Wingert

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Seasons

2

Writers

Christian Linke , Alex Yee

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Franchise(s)

League of Legends

Directors

Pascal Charrue , Arnaud Delord

Showrunner

Christian Linke , Alex Yee

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