Arcane Showrunner reveals which 3 League of Legends regions Riot Games will explore next

Arcane has come to an end with the release of Season 2, but League of Legends developer Riot Games is far from done with animations based on the hugely popular MOBA.

IN an interview with League content creator NecritRiot’s creative director and Arcane creator and showrunner Christian Linke revealed the three Runeterra regions it’s exploring as settings for future shows: Noxus, Ionia, and Demacia.

Arcane is set in Piltover and Zaun, but Season 2 teases the home of Noxus, Ambessa Medarda and her daughter Mel, as a potential future setting. Riot describes this region as a “brutal, expansionist empire,” home to the likes of champions Darius and Draven.

Ionia, an island continent “of natural beauty and magic”, is where the likes of Yasuo, Ahri and Zed hail from. They remained largely neutral until their country was invaded by Noxus.

And finally, Demacia is Runeterra’s “proud, lawful kingdom with a prestigious military history.” This is where Garen, Lux and Lucia come from.

In the interview, Linke revealed that Reddit threads where players voted on where they’d like to see Arcane follow-ups next were spot on.

“I want to give you a little thing,” he said. “I’ll tell you this: we’re investing quite a bit in Noxus, Ionia, and Demacia. We’re really starting with character stories. But I’m very confident that we’re investing in the right stories, because those were simply the responses we’ve seen in those threads.

“We have a lot of data. We know which characters our audience likes and plays a lot. It takes some effort to understand the difference between people who pick champions because they win versus people who pick champions because they like them. But we’re aware of that. So we don’t just go along with who’s popular because they’re winning, but where’s the resonance, and how do you define resonance?

“But I’m very confident that we’re looking at the right regions where there’s a lot of fandom, a lot of interest, and I’d guess that’s where I’ll leave it.”

Before that tease, Linke confirmed that “right now we (Riot) are developing the follow-up project.”

“We’re exploring a lot of directions,” he said. “When you work on something for nine years, it’s quite normal and quite expected that you get ideas for other stories.

“We’re looking at every region. We now have the opportunity to focus on making a board to tell many more stories. We’re far from done. It’s a really exciting time for us right now because we can really focus on that next.”

The question, of course, is when will fans get to see Riot’s Arcane follow-up? This may take some time given the enormous cost involved in the painstaking production of Arcane. But hopefully it will arrive sooner than the three years it took for Arcane Season 2 to come out after Season 1.

Last week, Riot Games co-founder Marc Merrill called ongoing arguments over Arcane’s huge budget “silly.” While Arcane has been a massive hit for Netflix and Riot Games — an unabashed critical darling that’s been embraced by League of Legends fans and otherwise — it didn’t come cheap. Earlier this month Black reported that it cost $250 million to make and market Arcane’s two seasons, for a total of 18 episodes.

That number undoubtedly makes Arcane the most expensive animated series of all time, but it is also hotly debated, with many pointing out that Arcane is cheap in price per episode. minute compared to animated feature films from the likes of Pixar.

Image credit: Riot Games.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can contact Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].