Arcane creators admit the show’s 5 season rumors were “tomfoolery”

The creators of Arcane have finally put to bed the five-season rumors about the animated show, stating that they were mere “tomfoolery.”

Arcane’s second and final season is upon us, with the first three episodes now out on Netflix and the remaining six set to drop throughout the rest of November 2024.

Ahead of the launch of the final season, it was revealed that the show cost a staggering $250 million to create, making it the most expensive animated series of all time by a long shot. 

A report from Variety dated November 6, 2024, claimed that Riot had “initially budgeted for a five-season arc” but decided to end the show after season two due to its production cost.

However, Arcane’s co-creators Christian Linke and Alex Yee put this hearsay to bed once and for all in an interview with TechRadar and confirmed that the two-season arc was the plan “from the beginning.”

What’s more, Linke even admitted that the rumor started due to a prank that was pulled on him when they were first creating the series.

When the initial pilot and first few episodes had been created, Linkle explained that they still hadn’t been given the green light to create a whole season. As such, Nicolo Laurent, the previous CEO of Riot Games, decided to prank Linkle with some bad news.

“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!’”

Yee doubled down on the notion that Vi and Jinx’s story would always wrap up in two seasons, revealing how “the story that’s concluding with this season is the one we plotted out from the get-go with the rest of the team.”

The co-creator explained, “I think we imagined ways that it could go beyond that, but one more season was the milestone we always wanted to hit.”

Linke then piped up to add, “Long story short, five seasons was nothing but tomfoolery on our part.”

Arcane Season 2 Part 1 is currently streaming on Netflix. Part 2 will drop on November 16, and the third and final part will drop on November 23.