Why won't there be an Arcane season 3?

But now that the season, and indeed the series, has concluded, why won't there be an Arcane season 3, and can fans expect any of their favourite characters' stories to continue in spin-off shows or follow-ups?

Read on for everything you need to know about Arcane season 3.

Why won't there be an Arcane season 3?

There have been conflicting reports as to why Arcane will be ending with its second season. While the creative team behind the show has repeatedly stressed that the decision was creative, bringing the story they wanted to tell to a timely end, a report by Variety has suggested it was actually an issue of budgeting.

The show has been notoriously expensive to produce, and the Variety report suggests that this is why it was cut down from an initial plan for a five-season arc to two seasons.

Of course, it could be a case of both being true – the budget constraints meant the show was brought to an end early, but given that season 2 is arriving three years after season 1, the creative team certainly had plenty of time to adjust their plans and make the narrative work in a satisfying manner within a final nine episodes.

What have the creators of Arcane said about ending with season 2?

As stated above, the team behind Arcane, including co-creator Christopher Linke, have said that season 2 brought the show to a natural close.

Speaking in an interview with ComicBook, Linke said: "We always had a story in mind with a beginning and an end. I think it was really just the character arcs. We knew that there was a specific thing we wanted to do.

"We didn’t necessarily have a specific episode count in mind, but we always knew it would be a finite story.

"It wasn’t this open-ended concept for a series. It was pretty organic for us, so there was never this question of, 'Oh, when will it end? We don’t know.' We knew from the start."

Meanwhile, co-creator Linke told RadioTimes.com of the final season in an exclusive interview: "Let's just put it this way, we're not holding back. For any Arcane fan, it is gonna be a gut punch, that's for sure."

Co-creator Alex Yee added: "There are implications for the future, you know, in the world. But certainly stories that we feel like we reach the end of."

Will there be other League of Legends series beyond Arcane?

While nothing has been confirmed, it certainly seems like there could be other series based on the League of Legends universe, following up with new stories.

When it was announced that Arcane season 2 would be the show's last, Linke said at the time: "Arcane is just the beginning of our larger storytelling journey and partnership with the wonderful animation studio that is Fortiche.

"From the very beginning, since we started working on this project, we had a very specific ending in mind, which means the story of Arcane wraps up with this second season. But Arcane is just the first of many stories that we want to tell in Runeterra."

Whether these new shows come to pass is as of yet unclear, but it certainly appears there is the determination from the team at Riot.

In spite of reports surrounding the costs of Arcane being much higher than was originally planned for, Riot co-founder and chief product officer Marc Merrill said in November 2024: "Our ambitions in entertainment haven’t changed. We were never intending to operate like a traditional studio with traditional timelines.

"What did change as we learned more was our expectations of ourselves: We realised that getting it right takes a lot more time than we’d originally expected, and so we recalibrated our development, output goals and teams with that in mind."

Linke also told Screen Rant that Arcane is "just the first" series Riot Games are intending to produce, adding: "We're working on a bunch of new projects, a bunch of new stories from across the different regions and characters of our IP, and some of them are actually continuations of character stories from Arcane.

"So, definitely, there are some character stories that we want to continue. So, really, Arcane is the true first. This is the first rite that we had to survive and figure out, 'Can we do this?' And now, we can kind of dream bigger, which is really awesome."

Arcane seasons 1-2 are available to stream now on Netflix. Sign up for Netflix from £4.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.

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