Riot Games CEO Nicolo Laurent recently provided an update on Arcane Season 2 and explained why it is taking so long to produce a second season to the hit Netflix animated series.
Laurent recently did an interview with Chinese League of Legends commentator Guan Ze Yuan, where he discussed everything from Riot Games’ plans for an MMO to a new fighting game and how they have been so successful in e-sports.
When the interview got to a Q&A session with viewers, the first question Laurent was asked was about the second season of the Netflix animated series Arcane.
Laurent answered the question by revealing he had just seen the third episode of the second season and went on to explain why it is taking them so long to get the second season produced after the first season debuted back in November 2021.
He said, “I just watched the third episode of season 2 before my flight to China so we are making progress on it. It is not ready yet. And there are two reasons for that.”
“One, you want the quality. We just don’t want to rush. So that takes time. So that’s the good reason,” he explained.
He then revealed, “The bad reason is, honestly, we didn’t know if season 1 was going to be a success. So we didn’t start season 2 until after.”
When Ze Yuan informs him the show is a huge success, Laurent replied, “But we didn’t know. If I had known we could have started season 2 way earlier, but we didn’t know so we kind of waited a bit. And so now we are paying the price.”
He then relayed, “It’s unfortunately not going to be this year.”
The first season of Arcane followed the stories of a number of League of Legends champions based in Piltover and Zaun with a focus on Jinx and Vi. However, other champions that also play prominent roles are Caitlyn, Jayce, Heimerdinger, Singed, Ekko, Ryze, and Viktor.
The official description reads, “Arcane dives into the delicate balance between the rich city of Piltover and the seedy underbelly of Zaun. Tensions between these city-states boil over with the creation of hextech — a way for any person to control magical energy – in Piltover; and in Zaun, a new drug called shimmer transforms humans into monsters.”
“The rivalry between the cities splits families and friends as Arcane brings life to the relationships that shape some of League of Legends’ famous champions including Vi, Jinx, Caitlyn, Jayce and Viktor. Based on the world behind the game League of Legends, the animated event series features a complex world filled with moral decisions, breathtaking animation and suspenseful storytelling,” it concludes.
The series has an outstanding overall score of 9.0 out of 10 on IMDb with the season finale receiving an extraordinary 9.6 out of 10.
It wasn’t just IMDb users recommending the show, popular film and TV critic The Critical Drinker gave the show high praise saying, “Arcane may just be one of the most gripping, nuanced, mature, poignant, and well-constructed TV shows I’ve watched in years.”
After providing a brief overview of the show he continued to heap praise on it, “I could probably spend hours gushing over every detail of Arcane’s story, but trust me on this one there’s a huge amount of stuff going on in this show everything from grand political maneuvering to dangerous science experiments that threaten to shift the balance of power in the world, friendships and loyalty tested to their limits, unexpected alliance and bitter betrayals, revenge, and reconciliation, it’s all here. And it’s all played out with some of the best, most nuanced, mature character work I’ve seen in year.”
All nine episodes of the first season are available to view on Netflix.
What do you make of this update on Season 2 of Arcane?