Arcane Season 2 streaming on Netflix

Arcane Season 2, launched on Netflix on November 23, stands as a masterpiece in storytelling and visual artistry, even for those unfamiliar with League of Legends. Remarkably, the show cost $250 million for just 18 episodes over two seasons, taking nine years to develop.

Riot Games and League of Legends

When discussing Arcane, it’s impossible to avoid talking about Riot Games and their multiplayer battle game League of Legends.

League of Legends (LoL), launched by Riot Games co-founders Brandon Beck and Marc Merrill in 2009, three years after the company’s establishment in 2006. The multiplayer battle game quickly gained global popularity, reaching a peak of over 180 million monthly active users.

Despite LoL’s strong performance, Riot Games sold 93% of its equity to Tencent for $400 million in 2011, eventually becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary in 2015.

Subsequently, Riot Games expanded the “Runeterra” IP universe based on LoL’s foundation, developing three mobile-focused games.

Get Jinxed

Christian Linke joined Riot Games as a data analyst in 2010, though his true passion and strength lay in music, having previously participated in multiple major European tours.

Riot Games quickly recognized Linke’s musical talent, transitioning him to composition in 2011, where he became responsible for login screen music, in-game soundtracks, and promotional video scores.

On October 9, 2013, Riot released LoL’s first character music video: “Get Jinxed,” which set viewing records that year and has accumulated over 130 million views on YouTube.

The success of “Get Jinxed” brought several changes, including Linke’s establishment of a dedicated music department in 2014 and initiating a long-term partnership with animation studio Fortiche.

Animated series about Jinx

The success of “Get Jinxed” excited both music lead Linke and character creative lead Alex Yee, as it marked their first opportunity to tell a character’s story through visual media. Linke contemplated, “How great would it be to make an animated series about Jinx?”

Linke approached management directly, proposing, “Let’s make the highest-budget animated series ever.” Management struggled with explaining how producing an animated series differed from creating music videos. In Arcane’s documentary, Linke detailed his strategic approach.

Linke first secured $2,000 for concept art, then $5,000 for test modules, and finally obtained a $65,000 budget in 2015 for Fortiche to produce an animation test.

In 2016, under Linke’s passionate advocacy, Riot Games’ management decided to take a major gamble, officially launching the Arcane project with Fortiche. Fortiche began recruiting for Arcane, expanding from 30 to 100 employees.

Ten months later, the first episode of Arcane was completed in 2017. However, internal reviews at Riot Games found it unsatisfactory. Simultaneously, Nicolo Laurent, previously responsible for international markets, was promoted to CEO at year-end and suspended the Arcane project upon taking office.

In January 2018, Linke was forced to deliver the bad news to Fortiche. To prevent Fortiche’s dissolution, he actively sought animation MV projects for them, including “K/DA – POP/STARS,” which has surpassed 600 million views on YouTube.

Arcane Project Revival

Linke never abandoned his vision of telling Jinx’s story. Riot Games decided to restart the Arcane project with even greater ambitions: creating a multi-season animated series.

Linke also shifted his approach, including recruiting experienced screenwriters. These writers brought tremendous value, enhancing character dialogue with emotional depth and more nuanced handling of narrative tension.

However, 2019 remained largely chaotic, as neither Riot Games nor Fortiche had experience producing animated series. No one knew exactly what organizational structure, timeline, division of labor, and budget were needed to complete a full season.

Fortunately, they found Melinda Dilger in December 2019.

Dilger was an animation industry veteran who had participated in over 200 animated productions and won an Annie Award (animation’s Oscar equivalent). She hadn’t played League of Legends and wasn’t even aware of Riot Games’ prominence.

Upon joining, Dilger’s first priority wasn’t reorganizing but getting to know everyone at Riot Games and Fortiche. Her core philosophy was:

“You must have been hired because you were deemed capable of the job and possessed the corresponding skills – that’s the simple part. The real challenge is gaining trust and getting people on your side quickly. Start by treating everyone as individuals, then roll up your sleeves together to solve problems.”

In March 2020, the Arcane project was officially relaunched. Dilger established new organizational structures, work divisions, and production pipelines and recruited more animation industry veterans.

Artisanal Animation Production by Fortiche

Fortiche is an animation studio with strong principles, one being their insistence on incorporating numerous 2D hand-drawn elements into 3D animation.

While characters are created using 3D models and rigging, 2D hand-drawn animation adds textures and effects like smoke, water, fire, and dust. Additionally, backgrounds are entirely hand-drawn in 2D.

An exciting moment in Arcane’s official documentary shows a filmmaker asking a Fortiche employee, “How do you make the facial textures look painted?” The interviewee awkwardly paused, then laughed and said, “Well… we paint them by hand.”

Fortiche’s lighting approach also differs from that of major studios like Disney. Simply put, they don’t have a dedicated lighting department, and their technique isn’t based on computer-calculated light sources but combines “trade secrets” with craftsmanship.

Finally, to achieve dynamic animation, Fortiche didn’t use motion capture for Arcane; all rigging and movement were manually created. Due to the small team size, the production had only a few riggers.

Excellent reviews

On November 6, 2021, Arcane Season 1 premiered on Netflix, attracting over 8 million global viewers on day one, generating over 34 million views in six days, and ranking #1 on Netflix in 52 countries, becoming Netflix’s best-performing premiere week series at the time.

Beyond viewership, Arcane received excellent reviews, scoring 9.0 (out of 10) on IMDb, a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and became the most discussed premiere series on Twitter (now X).

As a game adaptation, it naturally benefited game operations, increasing revenue by 30% after Arcane’s release. Third-party tracking sites estimated League of Legends’ play time surged to 300 million hours in November 2021.

In March 2022, Arcane won nine Annie Awards, including Best TV/Media – General Audience; in September, it became the first streaming animated series to win the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program.

Entertainment Industry Expansion

Restarting the Arcane project wasn’t an isolated event for Riot Games but a crucial step in establishing entertainment as a pillar business. Following Arcane’s success, Riot Games pursued aggressive expansion.

In December 2020, Riot Games recruited former Netflix VP of Marketing and PR Shauna Spenley as President of their newly established Global Entertainment division.

In March 2022, Riot Games announced deepening ties with Fortiche by acquiring a minority stake.

And then Global Entertainment President Spenley recruited four senior executives from Splice, HBO Max, Netflix, and Paramount:

• Maria Egan: Former Splice Chief Music Officer, to lead global music and events
• Kristin Moss: Former HBO MAX VP of Marketing, to lead entertainment product marketing
• Emily Briggs: Former Netflix Director of Content Acquisition and Strategy, to lead finance and strategy
• Ken Basin: Former Paramount Executive VP, to lead film and television business execution

Major Directional Shift

Since Riot Games’ major entertainment sector announcement in 2022, numerous market rumors circulated, including plans for live-action films and a new animated series by Linke.

However, entering 2023, none of these rumors materialized. Instead, Riot Games began large-scale organizational restructuring.

The most significant impact on the entertainment division came with the September 2023 departure of CEO Niccolo Laurent, who had strongly supported entertainment development during his tenure since 2017.

According to media reports, new CEO Dylan Jadeja immediately began streamlining the entertainment division, believing Riot Games should focus on gaming. Many within the company shared this view, feeling “it’s time to focus on games.”

In August 2024, Riot Games dissolved its once-pillar entertainment division, replacing it with two new departments: animation under Arcane creator Linke and live-action under Content Chief Brian Wright.

With the entertainment division’s dissolution, Shauna Spenley, who joined in late 2020 to lead entertainment, departed in August 2024 for Warner Bros. Discovery. Of her four key executive recruits, only Maria Egan, responsible for global music (Riot’s enduring strength), remains.

Conclusion

Most gaming companies cannot develop their games into diversified IP content; even when they do, it’s typically through licensing rather than self-production. Riot Games’ achievement – with no prior experience, self-funding, tackling a multi-season animated series on their first attempt, and gaining tremendous acclaim – is unprecedented.

In a recent interview, Riot Games co-founder Marc Merrill reaffirmed their commitment to entertainment, albeit at their own pace and with an adjusted approach. Unfortunately, Arcane will not continue beyond its current seasons.

However, regardless of Riot Games’ future development, their willingness to take an enormous gamble under tremendous pressure and passion, resulting in the magnificent and moving work that is Arcane, deserves sincere appreciation.