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Arcane season 2

Netflix
If you’re wondering if there’s going to be an Arcane season 3 after this (currently) stellar season ends, the answer is no. It’s not cancelled, Netflix isn’t that insane, but it was always meant to end after two seasons.

Turns out there’s a good reason for this. Not just because they have designed the series with a specific narrative arc for these characters that does not need to be dragged on indefinitely (that is a good enough reason if you ask me), but because Riot has even bigger, broader plans for League of Legends content.

In an interview with Collider, Arcane co-creator Christian Linke had this to say about future plans, where not just one, but many projects are currently in development:

“Yeah, we’re currently developing a bunch of follow-up projects. Really, Arcane was always considered the first step, kind of like the trial by fire. You need to figure out, “Can we do this? Do we have the chops? Do we have the characters? Do we have the storytelling?” So, now we’re working on the follow-up projects and it’s it’s really fun to start to look at some of the other characters and regions of our world.”

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The idea is to expand into the much, much wider world of the game, as currently there are 169 champions in its roster. They just added Arcane’s Ambessa. And in Arcane itself, we have seen that there are really only a dozen or so champions featured in starring, guest or cameo roles, leaving over 90% of the cast available for other follow-up series in their own corners of the League universe.

It’s an interesting interview overall as it addresses why these shows take so long to animate (given the quality, you may be able to understand that) and how it was “not easy to come by” to get Netflix to agree to release the seasons in three-episode chunks in three weekends in a row, something literally none of its hundreds of other shows ever do. But when you are quite possibly the best-reviewed show in the service’s history, you get some special consideration (although they were able to negotiate that even before the premiere last time, which coincided with League of Legends esports).

I don’t think the bad news here is that Arcane is ending after season 2, but rather that it may take a very long time to see another show in this universe crop up. Granted, I would say Arcane season 2 has been worth the wait, but I am not looking forward to it being 2030 before another two-season League series is able to tell a full story.