From its beginnings in 2021, the animated video game series Arcane has always gone big. One of the most expensive animated shows in existence, Arcane, produced by French studio Fortiche, is a one-of-a-kind experience. If there were a prestige TV parallel to be made, it would likely be with Game of Thrones.
After all, both shows used their massive production budgets to dig deep into political intrigue, character development, betrayals and plot twists, not to mention titillating — and often raunchy — romance. While Game of Thrones is in its spinoff era, Arcane is just getting hot. Having wrapped up its second season, clocking in at nine episodes, Arcane is one of the top 19 English-language shows streaming on Netflix at the moment. And everyone is talking about it — critically and otherwise. While it caught flak from fans for rushed pacing, Arcane also has left viewers excitedly discussing the loose ends that will have to be revisited and explored another time.
Inverse sat down with Arcane showrunner Christian Linke and writer Amanda Overton after the show’s finale to discuss the craft behind Season 2 and what else the creators have planned for us. To those that thought the show felt rushed, the creators have implored fans to consider rewinding and re-watching. Even though Arcane dropped multiple episodes in a sitting suitable for marathon-watching, the way it was crafted was meant more for a watercooler discussion, akin to Game of Thrones, Westworld, or Lost from yesteryear. And so here we are, two weeks after the finale, unpacking the nearly six hours of must-see TV that have us wanting more.
Heavy spoilers ahead for Arcane Season 2.
The Romance
Arcane’s core romance was always planned to be between Caitlyn and Vi, two characters from opposing sides of the city, Piltover and Zaun. The Arcane showrunner and writers idealized Caitlyn and Vi as the series’ ultimate romance, like Han and Leia from Star Wars.
“There’s no better symbiosis than love,” showrunner Christian Linke tells Inverse. “From the beginning, it felt right.”
The creators knew Arcane would have a limited run of two seasons by the time they finished writing Season 1, so the writers were able to plan ahead and map out the trajectory of the relationship, so it would feel like the first kiss was earned. For maximum drama, the writers also planned a difficult journey for Vi to traverse.
“It was very important that it was as messy and dark and complicated and vulnerable and we started them as far apart as possible,” writer Amanda Overton tells Inverse. “We earned that respect to have a relationship between them throughout the series.”
To that regard, the writers planned for Vi’s parents to have been slain by Enforcers since Vi was eventually supposed to become an Enforcer and date authority-loving Caitlyn, and “that will make that journey the hardest thing for her,” according to Overton.
Although the two come from starkly different backgrounds, the couple come together over their will to fight. Vi has always had to fight; she had no choice. She wasn’t handed anything, so she had to fight for everything. Meanwhile, Caitlyn is the kind of person who was handed everything but still chooses to fight for something, which is something that Vi can respect. The romance is built on such a foundation.
Even after the role of police officers grew hotly discussed in current affairs, the Arcane writers worked to portray Caitlyn thoughtfully and with nuance, so that she wasn’t simply a dehumanized, faceless member of law enforcement.
“It’s not just like a generic ‘Are you a cop or not?’ It’s like, ‘Oh, you’re doing this for reasons that I can relate to,’” Overton says.
Overton tells Inverse that a big driving force for her in her storytelling is putting different representation out there.
She says always loved playing video games and watching epic sci-fi shows with extensive world-building. “But I just never really saw myself in those spaces,” Overton said. “If I had seen more lesbian representation, maybe I would have been able to come out sooner, maybe I would have figured out who I was before I did.”
“I wanted it to feel like an epic journey that any other epic romance gets, like Han and Leia in Star Wars, where it takes several movies from them to come together,” Overton says. “I wanted a relationship where it takes the whole series to earn that relationship.”
The romance culminates in a steamy scene in Episode 8, where Vi is finally free to fall in love, instead of just protecting her little sister, Jinx. A petition to release the full Caitlyn and Vi unadulterated scene has received nearly 60,000 signatures, after Linke confirmed the scene exists.
“We finally get to answer ‘What would Vi do if she didn’t have anything left to protect?’” Overton says. “She would choose Cait.”
What to Make of the Ending
After seeing Jinx and Warwick tumbling toward their demise at the end of Season 2, we’re left with tons of questions: Is Jinx dead? Is it even possible to stay dead in Arcane, a world based on a game where characters constantly respawn from the most brutal slayings?
Overton confirms to Inverse that it may be possible for characters, even those slain on screen, to come back to life.
“This is a world of magic, and this is a world of possibilities,” Overton says. “We already showed that you can bring a character back: We brought Vander back in a totally different form. That to me is the great potential of a fantasy world like this. The possibilities are endless.”
Both Overton and Linke addressed disappointing fans with the perceived rushed pacing. The style of animation and sheer amount of information conveyed in just nine episodes is meant to be digested slowly, Overton says.
“Everything is very dense and layered. There’s so much meaning in every visual,” Overton says. “You can pause every frame and treat it like a work of art that you can examine for meaning.”
She continues, “I’m really hoping that people will go back and spend time with the story and engage with it, engage with the audience and community.”
In other words, Arcane is meant to be enjoyed a bit like sitting around the fireplace and consuming a communal episode of Lost.
“Everything you need to understand all of the characters and their arcs and journeys is in there,” Overton says. “We think we’ve left it all on the screen for Season 2.”
The True Mastermind Behind League of Legends
Shortly after the last episodes of Arcane were uploaded, Internet users started to joke about what a pivotal role the character Singed, who’s a bit of a mad scientist, plays in nearly all events of League of Legends. Singed creates Warwick out of Jinx’s adoptive father, Vander; he invents Shimmer, a deadly and highly addictive product that floods the undercity; and he plots to resurrect his daughter, Orianna. We probably don’t even know the full extent of his machinations.
Linke laughs when asked about the man, briefly miming Singed’s dastardly motions during the Inverse video interview.
“It was fun because you always felt like Silco was kind of manipulating and using Singed, and Ambessa and Viktor are using Singed,” Linke says. “But in the end, it’s just like, ‘No, you idiots. Singed is using all these political Svengalis to get what he wants.’”
Singed might just be the secret main character of Arcane, after all is said and done.
“Obviously, we’re just only hinting at Orianna’s existence,” Linke says. “I think it’s really interesting, the madness of Singed, and yes, his daughter is back, but how much of her is back? What was lost in the process is super interesting to think about.”
We already know from the game that Orianna is more deadly cyborg than fleshly human, but if Arcane ever gets the resources to tell her, seeing her transformation on camera will be a whole other experience.
What the Future Holds
Noxus and Ionia are definitely next on the list of League regions to be adapted in an Arcane spinoff. But Linke says some unexpected regions could also see the light of day, such as Bilgewater, where the pirates roam, featuring pre-existing characters like Miss Fortune (my personal favorite) and her parents’ murderer, Gangplank.
“I’m a bit like a kid in the candy store,” Linke says. “It’ll be hard to choose.”
Where in the world they go from here will largely be decided by the kinds of storytellers Arcane brings on and their expertise, he adds.
Overton is most excited to see Ionia, which sounds like a place she’d like to explore, she says. “The whole mythical culture, grounded in the Eastern rather than Western point of view of the world and their stories, would be something unique and different to explore,” she says.
Ionia is famously home to characters like the nine-tailed fox Ahri, assassin Akali, and commonly played heroes like Yasuo and Master Yi, which have also been with the game for plenty of years. After seeing Ahri and Akali debut as virtual pop stars, the idea of visiting them in a Netflix series makes a fair amount of sense, perhaps with an Aggretsuko sort of energy, where the focus falls on both music and narrative.
So, what comes next? League isn’t the only video game Linke would like to adapt. He thinks back to the games of his youth and says a Quake adaptation could be fascinating.
“I’m still waiting for the proper translation of Starcraft and Warcraft,” Linke says, who mentions he has sunk significant time into both Activision Blizzard titles. “There’s great stories to tell and I hope Blizzard can figure that out.”
