Riot just released a gorgeous new cinematic to promote the next Noxus-based season of League of Legends. Gorgeous, of course, because it is made by Fortiche, the French animation studio that was responsible for the totally unique and beautiful look of Arcane, which just wrapped up its two-season run.
Riot has said very clearly that this is not a show trailer, merely meant to showcase Noxus champions ahead of the year-long new-era format of League of Legends.
But counterpoint: What if it is a show trailer?
I know, I know, not in the literal sense. This is not projecting an actual full show storyline and it is not an official announcement of anything, but I mean, come on. Look at this thing.
My theory here revolves around a few different points:
- Riot has already said that there will be more show(s) like Arcane in the future featuring new regions. They do not care Arcane cost insane amounts of money and will keep doing projects like this.
- Noxus is the place that seems the most likely to be featured next, given how much crossover there was with Noxus in Piltover, and the fact that a Noxus big bad like Swain was teased in the finale.
- Finally, you’re telling me that Fortiche would go to all the trouble of designing a ton of likely featured characters in the style of Arcane for a one-off cinematic to start this next year of the game? I don’t buy it.
Maybe now is not the time to announce what will be the next Arcane-like series, but I find it hard to believe that even with Riot’s protestations, if and when a new show does arrive, that it will not heavily feature Noxus and not involve most or all of these characters that are being shown off here. Those include:
- Elise
- Katarina
- Leblanc
- Vladimir
- Darius
- Trundle
And the return of Mel Madara, naturally, of Noxus origin. She was introduced in Arcane and will be a League of Legends champion at some point here.
You’re just not going to convince me that Fortiche made this without the foresight to utilize these new designs for a future series. This trailer may not quite literally be for that series but I mean, come on, let’s not play dumb here. But that seems to be Riot’s plan here for the foreseeable future. Given that it was three years between Arcane seasons, I am not expecting anything official for a long while. But if this cinematic kicked off the year, maybe this is the year we get a real announcement, not just a big old hint like this.
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