Arcane trailer confirms that season 2 is the "final chapter" (but more League of Legends shows are coming)

It's been two and a half years since the first season of the Emmy-winning animated series Arcane premiered on Netflix, and at long last, we have an official teaser trailer for season 2. Following Jinx's (Ella Purnell) attack on the gathered nobility of Piltover at the end of season 1, things are only going to get bloodier and more complicated from here on out. How will Jinx's sister Vi (Hailee Steinfeld) react to her sister's chaos?

Based on the trailer, Vi will become something much closer to how she appears in the League of Legends video game: a reluctant law enforcer ready to punch her way through the oppressed city of Zaun's seedy underbelly.

The first season of Arcane was spectacular, so I'm more than a little excited for the show's return. However, you may have noticed a bittersweet confirmation in there: that season 2 is the "final chapter" for Vi and Jinx. Yes, you read it right: Arcane is ending with season 2. However, co-creator Christian Linke is quick to reassure fans that Arcane is only "the first of many stories" that are on the docket in this fantastical universe.

“'Arcane' is just the beginning of our larger storytelling journey and partnership with the wonderful animation studio that is Fortiche,” Linke said in a statement. “From the very beginning, since we started working on this project, we had a very specific ending in mind, which means the story of 'Arcane' wraps up with this second season. But ‘Arcane’ is just the first of many stories that we want to tell in Runeterra.”

Linke spoke a bit more about the decision to end Arcane in a video on Twitter/X. "[Animation studio Fortiche has] been with Riot through Vi and Jinx's entire journey thus far, from becoming in-game champions, to characters featured in different cinematics, to the main characters of their own TV show," he said. "Their arcs have grown so far beyond our original dreams for them, and we want to give the same treatment to more champions. So we're currently working on our next projects across television and film, and we're hopeful that we can share more by the end of the year."

"Champions," for the record, is what the playable characters are called in League of Legends. As of this writing, League of Legends boasts nearly 170 champions, each of whom has a unique backstory and allegiances. Only a handful of them have appeared in Arcane, so there's quite a lot more story fodder that Riot and Fortiche could draw from for other series.

Ella Purnell says the Arcane finale is "devastating"

As sad as I am about the prospect of Arcane ending, I think this is actually a really good call. Arcane took some of the lore and worldbuilding from League of Legends and blew it out into an entire dramatic story, rather than trying to adapt something strictly bound to the events of the game itself. That worked wonderfully — Arcane isn't just a great adaptation, it's a great show all around. But it's always felt like the kind of series that needed a finite end point. It sounds like the decision to end the show was a creative one, rather than a mandate from Netflix.

We've heard other rumblings that allude to Arcane having a solid, powerful ending. Back in April, star Ella Purnell spoke a little bit about the ending of Arcane season 2 while she was out promoting her other big genre show, Prime Video's Fallout. "I actually just went back into the studio to complete some ADR [automated dialog replacement] for the season 2 finale – and I cried," she told Tech Radar. "So, I think other people will cry, too. It's devastating, and nobody will feel good after watching it."

Tech Radar also had an interesting quote from Riot Games co-founder Brandon Beck, taken from episode 5 of the Arcane behind-the-scenes YouTube documentary Bridging the Rift. "The fact that we can spend five hours in Piltover and Zaun [in season 1], and then do it again in a second season, before we start to zoom out of this one little corner of the world and this handful of characters, just the possibility space is so wild," Beck said. That was all the way back in 2022, which suggests that Vi and Jinx's story has been planned to end with season 2 for quite some time.

As for the "many stories" that Riot Games and Fortiche have planned for Runeterra after Arcane, all we can do is wait to hear more. For now, attention must be paid to Arcane season 2! It premieres this November on Netflix.

Arcane season 1 is getting a 4k Blu-Ray physical release from GKIDS!

But wait, there's more! Just yesterday it was announced that Arcane season 1 is going to become one of the rare Netflix series to get a physical release. Even more exciting, that physical release will be coming courtesy of GKIDS Films, the producer and distributor that handles the North American distribution for Studio Ghibli's legendary film library as well as hits like 2010's The Secret of Kells. GKIDS has an insane track record and has been nominated for 13 Oscars for its work in the animation space. Having GKIDS produce the physical release for Arcane is as an absolute best case scenario, and we can rest assured that it's going to be a high quality product.

“GKIDS is thrilled to be partnering with our friends at Riot to bring the global hit series Arcane to fans worldwide,” GKIDS founder and CEO Eric Beckman announced at this year's Annecy International Animation Film Festival. “We are monster fans of the series, and our team is having a blast collaborating with the creatives at Riot and Fortiche to put together an amazing package for the fans. This project was dreamt up on the lawn by the lake at Annecy, so we are extra happy to be able to announce this collaboration at the festival and true home of animation.”

According to Deadline, GKIDS will begin rolling out various editions of Arcane season 1 sometime later this year, which should dovetail nicely with the release of season 2 on Netflix. Arcane fans are going to be eating well this holiday season.

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h/t Variety