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Arcane's five-season plan was an inside joke at Riot that went horribly wrong and horribly public, according to co-creator Christian Linke

A joke got taken out of context and created the rumor that Arcane was initially planned for five seasons.

Arcane Season 2 Screenshot
Image credit: Netflix

Fans of Netflix’s Arcane have had to wait a frustratingly long time for the second season to drop, but the wait has finally ended. Season two is out and is confirmed to be the show’s last, but rumors started swirling in the days leading up to the season’s debut that the initial plan was for five full seasons of the League of Legends adaptation. Was that ever the case? According to the show’s creators, only as a joke.

The rumors started from a line in a Variety report that said, in unequivocal terms, that Arcane was initially planned as a five-season series. Now, before you grab the pitchforks and storm the Netflix offices over the three extra seasons that they robbed you of, you should know that it wasn’t the streamer that decided Arcane should only be two seasons – it was always the plan, according to co-creators Christian Linke and Alex Yee.

“When we started building out the story after the pilot [that we showed internally at Riot], that’s when we were like, ‘Okay, it’s going to be two seasons,’” Linke explained in an interview, clearing up the misunderstanding. “It was never the plan for it to last five seasons.”

So, where did the rumor start? A prank that former Riot Games CEO Nicolo Laurent played on Linke when they were still planning the show. “But, what happened was – I think we had the pilot or a few episodes, but we still hadn’t had the green light for a full season,” Linke clarified. “At the time, Nicolo thought it would be really funny to pull me into a room and say, ‘Hey, I know you haven’t had the green light yet, and I decided I’m not going to give it to you.’ I sat there looking pretty upset before he added, ‘Because I’m giving you the go-ahead for five seasons!’ We both laughed.”

Since Linke believes that Variety got word of that, it would mean either he or then-Riot CEO Nicolo Laurent either told the 'joke' to others or one of the two talked to Variety - but Variety wasn't told it was a joke. 

Either way, Variety ran it and kicked off a whole host of speculation over the weekend. However, Yee confirmed that “the story concluding with this season is the one we plotted out from the get-go with the rest of the team.” The entire five seasons idea was nothing but “tomfoolery on our part,” Linke insists. So, no need to be upset about the seasons of Arcane that we didn’t get – they were never going to be a thing anyway.


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Trent Cannon

Trent Cannon: Trent is a freelance writer who has been covering anime, video games, and pop culture for a decade. (He/Him)

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