Set in the universe of Riot Games’ “League of Legends,” Netflix’s “Arcane” series is one of the most popular animated shows in recent memory. Fans were utterly blown away by the show’s art style and rich storytelling, and they were completely destroyed by at least one scene in Season 1 — and were devastated once again when it was canceled after just two seasons.

Despite rumors that “Arcane” was initially mapped out to be five seasons long, co-creators Christian Linke and Alex Yee have said that they always planned for the story to take just two seasons to tell. But that doesn’t change the fact that “Arcane” fans would happily watch more of the show, or a spin-off series, if Riot Games and Netflix wanted to make it a reality. So what’s the holdup?

“Arcane” just so happens to be, per episode, one of the most expensive TV series ever made. The show reportedly cost $250 million to produce and market, a steep price even for two unbelievably successful companies like Riot and Netflix. Though there’s demand for more “Arcane” — and more “League of Legends” entertainment in general — the massively inflated budget of Riot’s first series is getting in the way.

So how does a show that’s only 18 episodes long end up costing a quarter of a billion dollars? A big part of the problem plaguing “Arcane” was its long development time. Production began back in 2016 when Riot Games reached out to French animation studio Fortiche to develop a pilot. Animating all the small details in “Arcane” wouldn’t have been cheap under any circumstances, but Riot’s production was especially expensive. Some of that may be due to inexperience; the company had never worked on a TV show before, and there were some logistical snags throughout the series’ creation. The second season in particular was reportedly bogged down by frequent delays caused at least in part because Riot put the episodes into production before the scripts were fully written.

Outside of the actual work that went into making “Arcane,” Riot also blew up the show’s budget with its initial marketing campaign. “League of Legends” already had a ridiculously large fanbase, but instead of primarily relying on its established fans, Riot went all-in on advertising “Arcane” to other potential viewers. The company spent $60 million advertising the first season alone. When asked about the show’s cost, Riot co-founder and chief product officer Marc Merrill told Variety, “We’re more than comfortable with the spend it took to deliver a show that was worthy of our players’ time.” That may be true, but it looks like all the money and effort that went into “Arcane” sapped any enthusiasm for similar projects at Riot.

It may have been forgotten by many fans, but when “Arcane” first debuted, the show was supposed to be the beginning of a whole “League of Legends” entertainment universe. At the end of 2020, Riot Games made a big push to start producing its own shows and movies, going as far as hiring Shauna Spenley as the global president of entertainment. At the time, Riot CEO Nicolo Laurent told Fast Company that he wanted Riot to become the “entertainment company of the 21st century” because “gaming is going to be the mass market of tomorrow. Gaming will be the center of entertainment.”

Four years later, “Arcane” is all that Riot has to show for its efforts. The company briefly had plans to hire the Russo brothers to make a film, but that didn’t take off. Both Laurent and Spenley have left Riot, and the company hasn’t announced that it’s working on any other shows or animated projects. In fact, it seemed to quietly shut down the entertainment division in 2023 and laid off hundreds of employees throughout 2024. “Arcane” is very nearly animated perfection, but, sadly, despite making Emmy history, it may very well end up being the only show fans ever get in Riot’s universe.