Go behind the scenes of Arcane season 2 with these epic making-of videos

Last month, Netflix and Fortiche Productions dropped the final three episodes of Arcane, their hit animated series based on the League of Legends video game from Riot. Arcane was one of the rare video game adaptations to not only be excellent, but go beyond what was possible in its source material. I don't think I'm alone in saying that I never expected a show based on a multiplayer brawler video game to turn in one of the most compelling genre TV stories of recent years.

There are a lot of things that made Arcane so special: its stellar writing, its incisive story about twin cities struggling to create a better future for themselves, its memorable characters voiced by top-tier Hollywood talent, its one-of-a-kind animation, its far-reaching soundtrack...there are too many virtues to list. Now that its second and final season is over, it's time to look back on Arcane and how Riot and Fortiche managed to put together this unique series.

To wit, Netflix has released a ton of behind-the-scenes featurettes to keep fans happy. We're going to round up a couple of them right here, in case you loved Arcane and missed out on the extra content. They're all very much worth a watch, starting with "Making Arcane | Arcane: Season 2," which went live shortly after the finale aired:

This one features some really cool footage of various voice actors in the studio, as well as co-creators Christian Linke and Alex Yee talking about their overall vision for the show. "With season 1, first thing was like, can we establish the characters from the game that we all know, and what they sound like, what they fight like? But we want to have the drama and the stakes of something that we see in anime," Linke explains. "Season 2, a lot of it was, like, kind of pushing it much further. It really explores the dark sides of the characters."

"Making Arcane" is one of the few videos I've seen that actually shows actors recording dialogue for the show, sometimes while watching clips from the series. And of course, it's nice to hear from the likes of Ella Purnell (Jinx), Hailee Steinfeld (Vi) and all the rest about what this journey has been like.

Arcane Afterglow

Another group of behind-the-scenes videos that's worth a watch is Arcane Afterglow. These short, 10-ish-minute long featurettes have various cast and crew members sitting on a set modeled after The Last Drop, the bar run by Vi and Jinx's adoptive father Vander. Netflix released one episode of Arcane Afterglow to go with each act of the final season. Just like with "Making Arcane," the final episode of Arcane Afterglow dropped shortly after the finale episodes released.

Beyond some interesting tidbits, like discussion about whether Jinx is actually dead (Ella Purnell says it's "open to interpretation"), the evolution of Viktor's powers, and the purpose of Ekko (Reed Shannon) getting stuck in an alternate dimension during the season's seventh episode, the Act 3 episode of Arcane Afterglow also digs into one of the soundtrack's most notable songs: "The Line" by Twenty One Pilots. This song reflects aspects of Viktor's transformation in the show, as he goes from an idealistic scientist to a borderline demigod bent on magically subjugating everything around him.

The powers behind Arcane brought in Twenty One Pilots' Tyler Joseph to record a music video which features animation from the series. In the episode of Arcane Afterglow above, you can see Joseph on wires and sitting at the piano on a soundstage as they captured the footage needed for the video. Then, if you're curious, you can see how it all turned out in the official music video below:

As mentioned, Arcane Afterglow is a three-part series. If you haven't been watching along with each act, these videos are very much worth checking out. Here are the Arcane Afterglow episodes for Act 1 and Act 2:

Obviously, we know how some of the cliffhangers that showrunner Christian Linke was cagey about in those previous episodes of Afterglows worked out, but there's still plenty of good stuff in there for Arcane fans — especially if you want to hear Purnell and Steinfeld talk about Vi and Jinx's character arcs.

Arcane has one big advantage over video game shows like The Last of Us and The Witcher

Continuing our post-season Arcane journey, next we have to shout out a recent interview with one of the show's writers, Amanda Overton. Overton recently spoke with GamesRadar+ where she revealed a few choice tidbits about the show's final season. In particular, she homed in on one of Arcane's greatest strengths compared to other video game adaptations: it isn't tied to static source material and can therefore change things up to best suit the story.

"It's just really rare - not a lot of games are as mobile, and moving, and changeable, as League of Legends is," Overton said. "It's updating all the time, it changes, it's a very nimble, changing game. And so there isn't a lot of opportunity to have an adaptation of a game to then also be able to change the game or adapt the game. The Last of Us can't do that, The Witcher can't do that. Any game adaptation that we've seen recently doesn't have that relationship with League that Arcane does."

Overton hits the nail squarely on the head here. League of Legends is a MOBA game, which stands for "Multiplayer Online Battle Arena." In other words, the whole game is a player-vs-player set up where teams of players pound on each other as they try to capture one another's fortresses. Any story elements are tertiary at best; it's not an exaggeration to say that a player could enjoy hundreds of hours of League of Legends without every coming into contact with its extensive lore, which mostly exists on the video game's website.

That's very different from The Last of Us, which is a strictly story-based game. The television show had to hew very close to that story lest it upset fans, while Arcane was essentially making up an all-new tale. The Witcher has it even harder; the show is technically based on a book series, but because the video games are so well-known, many fans have preconceived notions about the franchise that aren't actually in line with the original novels and short stories by Andrzej Sapkowski. That has has led to a very complicated reaction from the fandom.

Watch our interview with Arcane Executive Music Producer Alex Seaver

Let's end our round-up closer to home! To mark the end of Arcane, we sat down with Executive Music Producer Alex Seaver, who makes music under the alias Mako. Seaver worked on both seasons of Arcane as a songwriter and co-composer, but in season 2 he was promoted to overseeing the show's pop songs. As anyone who's seen Arcane can tell you, the music is a huge part of the show. It was a blast to hear Seaver's take on how the music came together for this season. You can watch the interview above, or check out a transcription of some of the highlights here.

Both seasons of Arcane are now available on Netflix. As for what's next for the team behind this series, showrunner Christian Linke has teased that more story ideas are percolating for future shows based on League of Legends. We'll be excited to see where they go next!

And beyond that, there's also a brand new tie-in novel coming out next year by author C.L. Clark. The book, titled Ambessa: Chosen of the Wolf, will explore the backstory for Arcane season 2's lead villain Ambessa Merdada. It releases from Orbit on February 18, 2025, so it won't be long before we're back in Runeterra!

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