‘Arcane' cocreator reflects on Season 2 and looks ahead to the future of ‘League of Legends'
Prior to 2021, Riot Games' League of Legends was primarily known as a wildly successful battle arena game. But the characters created for that game became even more popular after Netflix debuted the first season of Arcane, a thrilling animated series that rivaled Pixar in terms of visual flare.
After a three-year hiatus, Arcane returned for its second and final season in November 2024. The series' swan song is now potentially a contender to win its second Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program. Prior to the voting period, Gold Derby caught up with Christian Linke, the cocreator of Arcane and one of the primary driving voices behind it. Linke shared his thoughts on the origin of the show, Season 2's change in direction, and where the franchise may go in the future.
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Linke noted that most of the story and lore behind Arcane didn't exist before the show. All of that was built around asking questions about the characters as they appeared in the game.
"What was there to start to work with was the characters, Vi, Jinx, Jayce, Viktor, Caitlyn, Ekko, That was really the heart of what inspired the show, and frankly made us fall in love with wanting to to work on this project because we had been with these characters for at that point, five or six years. We've been playing the game for hundreds or thousands of hours with these characters. And just over time, you start to have questions. 'Who are they when they're not just these game characters? How do they live their lives? What happened to these sisters that became enemies?' These were just all the questions that started to pop up over time.
Jinx — as voiced by Fallout's Ella Purnell — turned out to be one of the show's most popular characters just as she is in the game. That didn't come as s surprise to Linke and his collaborators.
"Jinx, to a large degree, inspired the entire show," said Linke. "I think there's always been something about Jinx that is magnetic. When she's on the screen, it's just fun. Her scenes are fun. She's always been one of the most successful characters from our game. So I think there's just something about that wild character and expression that is the ultimate power fantasy of doing whatever you want and being interesting and original. We've always known that Jinx is our powerhouse."
However, Linke admitted to being shocked by how much viewers liked Jinx's second adoptive father, Silco (Jason Spisak), who was one of the unambiguously villainous characters in Season 1.
"We weren't sure what kind of reaction to expect from Silco," admitted Linke. "He is a manipulative, criminal, ruthless, and at times violent man who does a lot of messed up stuff. I think we were pretty surprised to see how after the first season was out, there were a lot of Silco fans. I think that was a bit of a learning experience for us. It was fascinating to see how there were a lot of people who were willing to forgive a lot of pretty messed up stuff that he was doing as the underground kingpin of Zaun. I think that was perhaps the most interesting reaction we had to process."
Netflix
If the first season of Arcane was built around introducing the game's characters to a wider audience, Season 2 was meant to find new layers for the champions of the rival cities of Zaun and Piltover.
"In many ways, Season 1 was all about getting the characters to that state that they're at in the game," said Linke. "When they're champions of League of Legends. Season 2 was about 'What have we not seen from these characters yet? What have we not seen in the game yet?'
"We flipped a lot of the characters on their heads," continued Linke. "Caitlyn, for example, goes from a hopeful character who wants to work with the underground and really becomes an opponent and a very fierce aggressor after her traumatic experiences at the end of Season 1. And Jinx becomes this unlikely icon/hero of Zaun, which she really didn't expect. I think that was really fun to explore."
Netflix
The two seasons of Arcane were not only filled with emotional story arc, it also had some of the most jaw-dropping animation seen on TV or streaming that rivals Pixar itself. Linke gave full credit for Arcane's unique mixture of 3D and 2D animation to Fortiche, the French animation studio behind the show.
"[Mixing 3D and 2D] was always their trademark look and I think it's because they had a lot of artists coming from comics and being in love with traditional 2D animation, 2D VFX," related Linke. "They just always wanted to find this approach that blends things together. It really was just leaning into that. They have this identity already as artists and it felt like it made 2D work on the big screen. It was a cool blend and I just always loved it. I tried to enable them to lean into that."
Netflix
According to Linke, Arcane was always going to run for only two seasons. But the League of Legends universe lives on. Regarding a potential live-action League of Legends, Linke said "there are explorations." He also said that the team has considered making an Arcane movie.
"[Making an animated movie] has crossed our minds," admitted Linke. "We'll see. Now, we're exploring follow-up projects, and there are a bunch of features among them. Which ones will actually go? It's still a big TBD. In the last few weeks, when you have these screenings going on awards consideration, Arcane really holds up well on the big screen. That was a wonderful experience for us. Definitely everybody is excited to think about what future projects could look like on the big screen."
For the present, Linke noted that Riot wants to keep the team behind Arcane intact as they decide what the next project will be.
"What we're starting with is the people," said Linke. "We've worked together now for 10 years on Arcane. We're very inspired by Pixar, where people started working together on Toy Story, and then after that, people became captains of their own ships, because you learn from each other. That's where we're at. Right now, we want to invest in a few key people that worked on Arcane to explore new stories and see what they're drawn to. We still have to prove that we have strong stories and worthy stories to invest in. We're really investing in the talent that made Arcane.
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