Arcane Season 2 makes a lot of its fans waiting. The animated series Arcane launched in November 2021 and immediately became a smash hit for Netflix with its gripping tale (and one hell of a cliffhanger ending). It even won an Emmy in September 2022 for Outstanding Animated Program – so you know that it’s a good one to add to your watch list if you haven’t already.
But considering you’re here, reading about season two, we’re going to take a wild guess that you’ve already devoured the first batch of episodes, and now want to know when we’ll see more.
Here’s everything you need to know about what lies ahead for the future of the show.
Arcane Season 2 Release Date: When Will It Air?
We don’t know when Arcane Season 2 will be back for season two at the moment, but it has been confirmed that it’s on its way.
Production began on the show in November 2021, as Netflix announced at the time, but now it’s just a waiting game. Some early season two voice work took place during the lockdown, according to Kevin Alejandro (via Buzzfeed).
“A little bit of Arcane season two started during the pandemic, which was interesting and challenging,” he said. “So [the crew] delivered an entire studio set-up, including soundproof walls, cameras, mics, and directions on how to set it up. Then, I would Zoom from my closet to record our lines for our next season.”
According to Riot Games CEO Nicolo Laurent, the original series took six years to make, but in a tweet, he promised that the wait for a second season shouldn’t be as long:
So yeah, we are working on #arcane season 2.
— nicolo (@niiicolo) November 21, 2021
The good news: you won’t have to wait for 6 years (the time it took us to making season 1)
The bad news: it’s not coming in 2022 https://t.co/IQoPyLnw1J
All Arcane fans will be very disappointed to hear that, but it recently has become clear that Arcane season 2 won’t release in 2023 anymore. After the success of the first season, Fortiche, alongside the writers and the producers, will take their time to create a great second season. And maybe that is for the best! We don’t want anything that would ruin the series for fans.
The stakes are much higher now for Riot Games for Arcane Season 2, due to the success of the first season, according to Riot Games CEO Nicolo Laurent. Come on, you don’t just casually sweep the Annie Awards and all Emmy Awards in the animation category without gaining some pressure, right? So we predict Arcane season 2 to release on Netflix in early/mid-2024.
Fortiche uses an interesting mix of both 3D and 2D animation, which is what gave Arcane that unique texture. Therefore, it could take a bit longer. Riot recently released a 5-part series on their YouTube, outlining just what went into the making of Arcane. It’s pretty crazy, to be honest.
Where Will Arcane Season 2 Take Place?
Season 1 of Arcane played out in both Piltover and Zaun, twin cities that are mirror images of one another. While Piltover is a rich city, out in the sun, with a large academy, Zaunites live in the Under City, shrouded in chemicals, but with a thriving society of their own.
Will we be exiting these cities? Probably, no. As the plot of Season 1 ends pretty abruptly, there is still a multitude of unanswered questions left. Therefore, along with the hints we got in a lot of the final sequences of the last episode, along with lore knowledge, we can predict that Arcane Season 2 will continue where the first season left off, probably with a time skip though. Adding to this, we will probably have some more Noxian influence added to it as well.
Maybe season 2 will expand more into the world of Runeterra. There are a bunch of places
Arcane Season 2 Plot
If you’ve seen the final episode of Arcane’s season 1, you’ll know Jinx fired a crystal rocket at Piltover’s council chamber, with many main and supporting characters trapped inside. Those present when the rocket exploded included Jayce, Mel, Viktor, Cassandra, Hoskel, Bolbok, Shoola, and Salo.
We don’t expect everyone to have survived the blast. At the very least, we think Mel and Cassandra will perish or be severely injured. On Reddit, fans suspect that’ll be the case, too, with some suggesting an animation frame from season 2 – glimpsed in Bridging the Rift episode 3 – might have revealed Cassandra dies. It would be odd for Riot and Fortiche to ruin this potential storyline pre-release, but maybe it was intentional to see if anyone picked up on it. The frame doesn’t look like it’s from season 1 so, unless it’s a deleted scene from that season, this may be our first look at Arcane season 2.
If Mel and Cassandra die in the explosion, it would give Jayce and Caitlyn a major incentive to pursue Jinx. You know, seeing as they’re Jayce’s partner and Caitlyn’s mother. That could lead Jayce to walk back on his promise to give Zaun its independence from Piltover, especially now that Jinx – a Zaun citizen – carried out the attack.
Additionally, Caitlyn may be out for revenge if her mother was hurt or killed, which would put her at odds with Vi, whom Caitlyn is close with. The latter is Jinx’s sister, so Vi will likely be caught in a difficult situation: help Caitlyn and Jayce to bring her sister to justice, or try to save Jinx from herself. The latter would put her in opposition with the other two, though, so she’s got a lot of thinking to do if we’re right in our assumptions on all of the above.
That isn’t the only thing that could divide Caitlyn and Vi. Responding to a fan on Twitter about whether Caitlyn knows Vi and her gang blew up Jayce’s lab in season 1’s opening act, Arcane writer Amanda Overton revealed that wasn’t the case. So, will Caitlyn learn the truth in season 2? Place your bets now.
Speaking at the 2022 BAFTAs (per The Digital Fix, showrunner Alex Yee said fans “will be happy” with the progression of Caitlyn and Vi’s relationship either way, adding: “How we wanted to roll that story out has always been sort of determined. What you will see in season 2 will be part of the big picture that we’ve had all along.”
Expect the brewing war between Piltover and Zaun to take center stage in Arcane season 2, too. Tensions were already simmering between the nations last time out, so we wouldn’t be surprised if a full-blown conflict begins due to Jinx’s actions. During a Reddit AMA, co-creator Christian Linke summed up this season’s overarching narrative with the word “war”, so it sounds like we could be right on the money. That’ll include another showdown between Jinx and Ekko as well, according to Linke.
Additionally, Yee teased (via Netflix Queue) how the battle lines have been drawn heading into the next chapter, saying: “We ended season 1 by really pushing a lot of the characters in the show as far as we could from each other. Figuring out how to deal with this puzzle, where all the pieces have now been split up and tossed to the four winds, is going to be the main thrust of season 2.”
We also expect to see Heimerdinger and Ekko collaborate further to help the undercity in Arcane season 2. With the former voted off Piltover’s council in episode 7, he bumped into an injured Ekko on the streets of Zaun in episode 8. The pair bonded over their shared affinity for technology and, after Heimerdinger helps Ekko to return home, the duo decides to work together to ease Zaun’s suffering.
We’ll also see whether Viktor will lose himself completely to his Hextech research. He’s already inadvertently murdered his childhood friend Sky thanks to his Hexcore studies, and it appears that he’ll walk a darker path in the show’s sophomore year. If we know anything about League of Legends (LoL) lore, we could see Viktor use Hextech to cybernetically enhance his body further and become the champion that diehard LoL fans know him to be.
There could also be room for some flashback sequences involving deceased characters. Responding to a Reddit fan’s question about whether we’ll see Silco and Vander’s friendship pre-betrayal, Linke said “You will, in fact“. Currently, it’s unclear if that’ll be part of Arcane season 2 or a future installment.
Elaborating on what we can expect from various characters’ journeys next time out, Linke told the Academy of Interactive Arts and Science’s YouTube channel: “Season 2 was always this thing that made us think ‘let’s take them further and explore the corner of their psyche and identities we haven’t seen’. The challenge was to go to places where they’d never been to. I’m excited about what we’re doing in that regard. I also hope it makes every League [of Legends] player proud and every animation or fantasy nerd excited about our characters.”
In a bid to drum up excitement for season 2 (not that it needs it), Kevin Alejandro, who plays Jayce, said fans will be “on the edge of their seats” (per Buzzfeed), adding: “You’re going to be conflicted in such a way that I don’t know if it’s good or bad. Like, your emotions will be pulled out of you and you’ll be like ‘Oh my god!’ That’s how you’re going to end [season 2]. It’s so good!”
However, Arcane Season 2 might spell the end of our exploration of this area of Runeterra – the world in which the series is set. In Bridging the Rift episode 5, Riot Games co-founder Brandon Beck confirmed the show’s creative team would look to explore more of Rune Terra’s regions and introduce new LoL heroes in subsequent seasons. Many fans took this to mean Vi and Jinx’s story will end with Arcane’s second season. Without clarification from Riot, that rumor will run for a while yet.
