I was half-asleep on my couch in November 2021, thumb hovering over PUBG Mobile’s update button, when I saw the patch notes that made me sit up straight. Arcane was coming to PUBG Mobile. Not a vague skin bundle, not a single emote—an entire crossover with Riot Games’ first animated League of Legends series. The 1.7 update was scheduled for mid-November, and it promised items, characters, and locations pulled straight from the show. I had watched the first teasers for Arcane, and I already loved Runeterra’s messy magic. Seeing it collide with the battlegrounds I dropped into every night felt like two of my favorite worlds had swapped doors.
According to Vincent Wang, head of PUBG Mobile publishing, the team was ‘extremely excited’ to partner with Riot Games. He called Runeterra one of the most beloved universes in gaming and said the collaboration was an amazing opportunity to bring that magic to PUBG Mobile while supporting Arcane’s release. He also teased completely new gameplay features that PUBG Mobile had never experimented with before. I remember reading that line and thinking: what does Arcane look like inside a battle royale? Would I find Hextech crystals in a loot crate? Would Jinx’s graffiti cover a warehouse wall? Would I drop into Piltover? The answers arrived soon enough, and even if the event was limited, it felt enormous.
PUBG Mobile itself was free on the App Store and Google Play for iOS and Android. It was the sister to one of the first battle royales, the one that launched in 2017 and was known simply as PUBG. That made sense. Arcane, meanwhile, was a television show produced by Netflix and Riot Games, an animated series based on League of Legends and set in the same world: Runeterra.
But PUBG Mobile was not the only place celebrating. Riot Games launched RiotX, a month-long celebration across all of its titles. It began with the League of Legends World Championship, which featured performances from Imagine Dragons, Bea Miller, JID, and Denzel Curry. If you watched the global premiere on Twitch, there were several drops to earn. I set an alarm for November 6. The premiere was hosted at 5:30 PM PT, while the show itself debuted at 7 PM PT. I made popcorn, opened Twitch, and felt like the whole gaming internet was holding its breath together.
Here is the drop table I kept open in a browser tab:
| Game | Twitch Drop |
|---|---|
| League of Legends | Arcane Capsule |
| Wild Rift | Tear Emote |
| Valorant | Fishbones Gun Buddy |
| Legends of Runeterra | Jayce Emote |
| Teamfight Tactics | Gizmos & Gadget Little Legends Egg |
I claimed what I could. I did not play all of those games seriously, but I still wanted the drops. That is the power of a good crossover. It pulls you into ecosystems you normally ignore. In PUBG Mobile, I remember running across Arcane-themed locations, picking up cosmetics, and feeling that strange thrill of seeing a TV show bleed into a match. My squadmates and I would quote lines, argue about Jinx versus Vi, and then get eliminated by a sniper while we were busy admiring a mural. 😅
Now, in 2026, Arcane is a completed story. Season 2 arrived in 2024 and closed the book on Jinx, Vi, Caitlyn, and the rest. PUBG Mobile has moved through countless crossovers since then. RiotX has become a memory, a template for how a company can turn a launch into a global event. But that November 2021 moment still stands out. It was messy, ambitious, and a little absurd. Two of the biggest online games—PUBG Mobile and League of Legends—teamed up to celebrate an animated series that many people were not sure would work. It worked. Arcane became a phenomenon. PUBG Mobile got Hextech-flavored chaos. And I got a month of goodies to find and collect.
If you were a League and PUBG fan, that November was packed. Looking back from 2026, I can say it was one of the first times I realized cross-media events could feel like actual events, not just advertisements. The 1.7 update, the RiotX drops, the Twitch premiere—they all merged into one long, exciting night. I still log into PUBG Mobile sometimes and remember dropping into a match with Arcane music in my head. Some crossovers are forgotten by the next patch. That one stuck. 🎮✨