After the success of Arcane’s first season, Netflix needs to capitalize on the League of Legends extended universe. The streaming giant certainly has not been short on original content, producing some of 2021’s biggest hits with a slew of movies and tv shows still on the way. But as other platforms start to build momentum, Netflix needs to capitalize on its successes in order to stay ahead.
Arcane is the first series spawned from the massively popular League of Legends video game. The show focuses on a handful of characters and elements from the game, slowly building up the world of Runeterra. Arcane has been a massive hit worldwide and has already been renewed for a second season, but Netflix would be best suited to double down on the franchise while it still has the chance. The animation in Arcane is different and stylized, and the story is accessible even to those who aren’t familiar with the game.
Although Disney+ is still in its infancy, it will certainly become a force to be reckoned with in the coming years. The Star Wars and Marvel cinematic universes are the most successful film franchises in history, and the scheduled stream of Disney+ releases will keep fans of both series regularly returning to the platform. HBO Max has the DCEU and is beginning to expand on the Game of Thrones universe, and even Amazon Prime could kick off a Lord of the Rings universe following the release of its series. Establishing a cinematic universe will be paramount for streaming success in the years to come, and Arcane is a golden opportunity for Netflix to do exactly that.
Arcane is arguably the best video game adaptation of all time, currently sitting at an astonishing 9.4 rating on IMDb. League of Legends is one of the most-watched esports of all time, bringing in millions of viewers every year for its world championship events. The franchise has extensive lore for each character, and Arcane has so far only used nine of the game’s whopping 157 playable champions. Netflix is even launching a video game rental service in the coming months—which will feature the new League of Legends games Hextech Mayhem—so to continue producing video game-based content seems in line with their established interests and could forever change the relationship between video games and streaming.
Even Netflix’s subpar Marvel shows were enough to bring attention to the platform, and although League of Legends may have slightly less name recognition, the quality and accessibility of the story could easily for the difference. Continuing to expand the League of Legends universe and releasing series episodically on Netflix as they did with Arcane will provide the platform with a steady stream of return viewers from around the world as the viewership of the game continues to grow.