It’s official: Arcane – Riot Games’ first foray into television – is returning for a second season.
Set in the League of Legends universe, the series serves as a prequel to the hit video game, exploring the origin stories of retells the origin stories of characters from the realms of Piltover and Zaun.
“We’re beyond happy about the positive response to Arcane‘s first season and are working hard with the creative wizards at Riot and Fortiche to deliver our second installment [sic],” said co-creators Christian Linke and Alex Yee.
It’s perhaps no surprise to see the series earn such a quick renewal – not only has the first season earned acclaim from critics for its impressive animated visuals and complex characters, it also ranked top of Netflix‘s top 10 chart in 52 countries.
But when can we expect the next batch of episodes? And what will happen next after the first season closed on a cliffhanger? Here’s what we know so far about Arcane’s second season.
Arcane season 2 release date rumours
Netflix announced in November 2021 that a second season of Arcane was officially green-lit – in fact, the exact wording used by the @NetflixGeeked Twitter account was “in production”, which bodes well in suggesting that work on the new episodes is already underway.
The streamer is yet to officially confirm a release date for season two, though if production is already underway we can’t rule out a 2022 release date. Fingers crossed production doesn’t suffer any more delays after production on the first set of episodes was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which meant pushing Arcane’s planned 2020 release to November 2021.
Explaining the delay to the first season, Greg Street (also known as Ghostcrawler), Head of Creative Development for Riot Games, said: “Creative development and production is hard, especially in a world where you can’t see your coworkers IRL. We have video meetings now, which help, but they are no substitute for being in a room where we can really get the creative energy flowing. Combine these issues, along with the technical difficulties of production at the international scale, and the problem becomes a lot bigger.”
Arcane season 2 episodes
Netflix is yet to confirm an episode count for the second season, though it’s feasible we could be looking at a release pattern akin to the show’s first outing, which saw a total of nine episodes released between 6th November and 20th November in three-episode batches.
Arcane season 2 cast
We can expect much of the main cast of the first season to return for any follow-up, including:
- Hailee Steinfeld as Vi
- Ella Purnell as Powder/Jinx
- Mia Sinclair Jenness as Young Powder
- Kevin Alejandro as Jayce Talis
- Katie Leung as Caitlyn Kiramman
- Molly Harris as Young Caitlyn
- Harry Lloyd as Viktor
- Toks Olagundoye as Mel Medarda
- JB Blanc as Vander and Bolbok
- Reed Shannon as Ekko
- Miles Brown as Young Ekko
Less certain is the involvement of Jason Spisak, what with his character Silco being killed off in the first season’s finale – though there’s always potential for flashbacks.
Arcane season 2 trailer
A short clip accompanied Netflix’s announcement that Arcane would be returning for a second season – though it’s very much a teaser and doesn’t include any new footage.
Ready yourselves, friends. Season 2 of Arcane is now in production. pic.twitter.com/L9oYFzOn0X
— Netflix Geeked (@NetflixGeeked) November 21, 2021
We can expect a longer wait for our first proper glimpse at the next season of Arcane – for context, Netflix dropped a full-length trailer for the first season (see below) on 25th September 2021, six weeks prior to the show’s launch.
Arcane season 2 plot
Though there’s no official plot synopsis yet for the second season, we can make an educated guess or two as to how the early episodes might unfold given how the first season ended – with a huge cliffhanger.
The ninth episode of Arcane, The Monster You Created, saw Jayce (voiced by Kevin Alejandro) initiate a Council vote to give Zaun independence. The vote passed – but just at that moment a rocket fired by Jinx (Ella Purnell), who was traumatised from having killed Silco, hits the Council building.
That’s how the season ended – and with tensions high throughout the nine episodes between Piltover and Zaun, it’s highly likely the attack on the Council building will lead to more conflict and result in the vote for Zaun’s independence being disrupted, possibly for good.
Arcane: League of Legends is streaming now on Netflix – read our guides to the best series on Netflix and the best movies on Netflix, visit our Fantasy hub for more news and features, or find something to watch with our TV Guide.