The showrunner of Netflix’s Arcane has opened up about the areas of League of Legends that he’d like to explore more of in future projects. Rather than extend Arcane for multiple seasons, Riot surprised fans earlier in 2024 when it announced that Season 2 of the series would be its final one. Instead of continuing to focus on Arcane alone, the show’s creators said that they would look to tell the stories of other League of Legends characters across shows and films that are currently being developed with animation studio Fortiche. And while it’s not known what these upcoming projects might end up entailing, we now know what one of Arcane’s lead creatives would like to end up doing.
Speaking to ComicBook in advance of Arcane Season 2, we asked co-creator Christian Linke about which areas of the League of Legends universe he’d personally like to explore more of with these upcoming shows and movies. Linke acknowledged that those at Riot are working on a number of ideas at the moment that span the region of Runeterra, which is where League of Legends takes place. For himself, though, Linke said that he thinks the “whimsical” aspects of Runeterra need to be focused on a bit more as Riot hasn’t done enough with this in the past.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Related: Arcane Co-Creator Talks Decision to End the Series With Season 2 (Exclusive)
“We’re working on a bunch of new fallout projects,” Linke said. “We want to tell more stories in the different regions, for the different characters. And those are going to be very, very different from each other. Some of them will be more whimsical, some of them will be more serious and dark. Arcane is just the first step of a much, much bigger dream of storytelling.”
“Personally, I think in terms of storytelling we haven’t done enough with the whimsical corner of our IP,” he continued. “And I definitely have a focus to do something bigger there. Again, there are a lot of projects we’re exploring but on a personal level, we haven’t done enough for our audience in that particular tonality. I’m very excited about doing more there.”
Going off of these comments, the region that Linke is most likely referring to as “whimsical” is that of Bandle City. This area of Runeterra is home to the Yordle, which is a species that includes characters from League of Legends like Teemo, Tristana, Lulu, Corki, and Rumble. Bandle City is a much more playful region in Runeterra, especially compared to others like Bilgewater, Ionia, and the Shadow Isles which are a bit darker in nature. Linke’s statement by no means confirms that Bandle City could be the focus of what will come after Arcane, but it’s safe to assume that he might have ideas for a story with the Yordle.
For now, it remains a mystery when it comes to what Riot will do next in the TV and film space. As for Arcane itself, though, the series is set to return on Netflix later this week on November 9th with its first three episodes. The following three episodes of Season 2 will then drop on November 16th and will culminate in the series’ concluding episodes dropping on November 23rd.