Riot Games announce collaboration between League of Legends’ Arcane and PUBG Mobile
League of Legends is coming to PUBG Mobile.
Game publisher and developer Riot Games have released an announcement video to confirm the integration of characters, items, and locations from its upcoming League of Legends animated series, Arcane, into PUBG Mobile.
These updates will be added in Version 1.7, set to be released on November 16.
Arcane, created by Riot Games together with Paris-based animation studio Fortiche, was previously set to premiere in 2020, although its release was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Arcane takes place in Runeterra, the LoL universe, and will revolve around the rivalry between Jinx and Vi, two of the game’s most quintessential characters. It will be released on Netflix and China’s Tencent Video website on November 6 and features Hailee Steinfeld, Ella Purnell, Kevin Alejandro, Katie Leung, Jason Spisak, Toks Olagundoye, JB Blanc and Harry Lloyd as part of its voice cast.
It wasn’t a complete surprise
Tencent Games, the publisher of PUBG Mobile, have been teasing this partnership for several days. In a tweet posted on PUBG Mobile’s official Twitter account, the shadow of four Arcane characters can be spotted over Erangel, showing resemblance to Jinx, Vi, Caitlyn, and Jayce. Another teaser also pointed at massive changes to the Erangel map in the game.
Brandon Miao, Cross-Product Experiences and Partnerships Lead Riot Experience (XP) at Riot Games, said the collaboration aims to give fans “unique new experiences in one of Riot’s first partnerships to bring the world of League of Legends to more players worldwide”.
“PUBG MOBILE is a beloved game that has been embraced by players around the world. We value partners that nurture communities of shared play with a deep commitment to developing exciting new content to delight players. We look forward to bringing an authentic celebration of Arcane to Erangel,” Miao said.
Adding to Miao’s statement, Vincent Wang, Head of PUBG MOBILE Publishing, Tencent Games, said he and his team have been anticipating the crossover.
“We’re extremely excited to be partnering with Riot Games to celebrate its first-ever League of Legends animated series,” Wang said.
“Runeterra is one of the most beloved universes in gaming, and to be able to bring that magic to PUBG MOBILE while also supporting the release of Arcane is an amazing opportunity. We’ve got a lot in store for our players with the Version 1.7 update, including some completely new gameplay features we’ve never experimented with before, so we can’t wait to show off more.”
Popularity has been increasing on all platforms
Since its release for both iOS and Android back in March 2018, PUBG Mobile has been very popular among gamers. The shooter battle royale game reached 1 billion downloads on Google Play Store and App Store combined this year. As of August 2021, PUBG Mobile has brought a total revenue of $6.2 billion.
PUBG Mobile does not seem to plan to stop there and keeps spreading its wings to reach wider markets and attract more players outside its initial target demographic. Among their latest collaborations were with Swedish car manufacturer Koenigsegg and English Premier League club Liverpool F.C.
