Riot Faces Major Shock but LoL Fans Celebrate
In the aftermath of the 2021 World Championship, Riot delivered the animated masterpiece Arcane – centered around the world of Runeterra, telling the stories of champions Jayce, Ekko, Jinx, and Caitlyn in the cities of Zaun and Piltover. This animated series quickly captured the attention of audiences worldwide, receiving widespread acclaim and numerous awards. The cliffhanger ending of season 1 only heightened League of Legends fans’ anticipation for the upcoming season 2, which, if all goes as planned, Riot is set to release in 2024 with many exciting plot developments. However, recent news brought bad tidings for the publisher.
Specifically, recent reports indicate that 5 episodes of Arcane season 2 have been completely leaked online following a hacking incident at Netflix. Notably, Arcane season 2 consists of only 9 episodes, meaning that more than half of the new season’s content has been made available to viewers before Riot officially releases the show. In fact, numerous links have been shared, and the League of Legends community is fervently hunting for these leaks.
LoL Fans Express Excitement
Interestingly, the majority of opinions from LoL fans express excitement in searching for the leaked episodes. Some fans even suggest that Riot might be “paying the price” for recently releasing Faker’s Hall of Legends collection at a steep price (over 500 USD in the European and American markets). Of course, there are also many fans who advocate against sharing the leaked clips to avoid impacting the future revenue of the show and causing Riot to cancel the project.
Currently, Riot has not released any information regarding the leaked episodes. However, it seems that the publisher may have to consider airing the new season of Arcane earlier than planned or sticking to the schedule after the 2024 World Championship. After all, the time from now until after the 2024 World Championship is quite lengthy, and audience engagement could still be strong if there’s enough time for people to forget about the leaks.