Arcane co-creator talks about what’s about the upcoming projects: “Next series is already in development for about a year”

Arcane finished the cycle of the first grand animation inspired by League of Legends. But that doesn't mean we won't see any more league champions and their stories. On Necrit's Twitch channel, the Arcane co-creator, showrunner, and executive producer Christian Linke discussed Arcane's last Act, new projects, ideas, the League of Legends universe, and Runeterra. Let's go through some of the most interesting points he talked about.

This article contains spoilers from Arcane season two so we advise you to watch the series before reading it. It's your responsibility from now on. Have fun!

We couldn't go through the next projects without closing some doors Arcane left open - and some fans' doubts and speculations. Christian Linke assured the most curious that Arcane season two event will impact the next projects lore-wise (and also League of Legends lore since it's already confirmed that Arcane is a canon event within Runeterra). Also, the team that worked on Arcane will be part of the future projects.

As for the story itself, the producer clarified that Hextech is not gone, but the core/anomaly is. This means we will continue to see weapons, experiments, and other things built with Hextech. An example is Blitzcrank, Viktor's invention built with Hextech. Linke commented that they thought about including the champion on Arcane S2, but the idea didn't go further.

"Arcane was not supposed to be originally canon", the producer explained, but the fans' feedback and reception were so good that they changed ideas. Telling the story of Zaun and Piltover and characters like Vi, Jinx, Viktor, and Jayce was always a wish they had.

As for other champions' futures: Heimerdinger is not dead and other champions can come back to life in future projects (Jinx, for example, could be a possibility due to the character's popularity). As for Warwick, the producer explained they wanted to show as many as Vander as possible. The transformation is complete, as we can see from the last episode, but the production team wanted to share how difficult the whole process was. He is split between human and wolf. One side will eventually win. The only thing about Singed was: "Shimmer is the invention of Singed to see how far he can take the human body".

The famous partnership between Viktor and Jayce, are confirmed to be bromance in the sense of "very good friends who die for each other at any given time". Linke confirmed Viktor will be explored on later shows since he is now more than just a human or Arcane user, he is something special.

Linke also confirmed that both Arcane' seasons showed some references to future champions. We see many like Teemo, Janna, Orianna, and many more easter eggs. And talking about easter eggs, the pianist in the Arcane trailer who was never mentioned during the show is teased to be Jhin. Linke did not confirm this but talked about other interesting characters.

For the Arcane fans who are not familiar with the League of Legends lore and champions, I'll be doing a short introduction to the champions Linke talked about so you don't get confused about why fans were talking about them. Twitch was a regular rat in the sewers of Zaun before a chemical accident caused him to mutate into a monster. Linke confirmed Twitch was never confirmed to appear in Arcane.

Ziggs moved to Zaun, where he now explores his fascinations more freely, terrorizing the chem-barons and regular citizens alike in his never-ending quest to blow stuff up - he was not the inspiration for Isha as many fans speculate. "Renata will replace Chem-Barons in the future", Linke confirmed. If you're not familiar with Renata Glasc's story, we can read our article about her and how would make sense for her to make an appearance in Arcane.

As for Urgot, he's coming later. Urgot was betrayed during the coup led by Jericho Swain, which left him trapped in the Dredge of Zaun. Zeri, a headstrong, spirited young woman from Zaun's working class who channels her electric magic to charge herself and her custom-crafted gun, was never a consideration for Arcane.

Other Piltover and Zaun champions will be coming into the Arcane timeline. It's a big interest for the production teams to go further into the deeper layers of Zaun. "Zaun is designed in way of multiple zones on top of each other... more deeper you go the scarier it gets", Linke said.

Vi is not considered a character from Zaun, even though she was born there. The most common explanation: League of Legends Vi is the Arcane Vi from the future. This means that, for the League of Legends lore, Vi's story is focused on her being The Piltover Enforcer. They still explain that she was born in Zaun, but she is not considered a character from the undercity.

The producer commented that the next story has been produced for about a year. "Noxus, Ionia, and Demacia are getting shows and are next steps into this cinematic universe", Linke told the fans. The first next step will be a Noxus-focused story since we're going to have the launching of Ambessa's book in February. He added that "House of Medarda will play a part in the future of Runeterra". It's not clear if he was only talking about the book (which is unlikely) or more things to come.

The producer also clarified that "Arcane does not originate from Hextech. The arcane is one viewpoint interpretation of magic... each region sees it differently". The Void is attracted to places with a high amount of Arcane magic. This can mean we can have something related to that "region".

The raven we see in Arcane is Raum, one of the antagonists in the universe of League of Legends. He appears alongside his host, Swain. "Jericho Swain is the visionary ruler of Noxus, an expansionist nation that reveres only strength", as we can read from his biography. We can expect to see Swain in the next projects.  

We know that the Arcane budget has been a hot topic lately, and Linke could not talk about it. The producer guaranteed that the cost of the show was not 250 million dollars as the media said. It was still expensive. He didn't clarify the actual values. He also pointed they wanted to make shows as huge as Game of Thrones since they aiming for big projects.

"MMOs are heavily involved while they are making choices for TV shows and vice-versa. All lore teams work together on choices. What we see is year-in-advance story planning. They are trying their best to keep consistency, but also say straightforwardly that lore changes all the time", he explained.

To end, Christian Linke assured that the "creators care about lore and they ask you to give them time and patience". They also understand the fact "they can't please everyone".

We're super excited about the next League of Legends projects. Arcane has delivered so much to the League fans and the ones that never played the game before.

That's all for now. Stick around for more news and updates on the next League of Legends projects on esports.gg.