7 Things to know about Netflix’s ‘Arcane’ before the Season 2 premiere

Throughout the first season, Vander has been heavily foreshadowed to be the League of Legends champion, Warwick—a chemically-altered wolf-like monster that hunts the streets of Zaun. Many instances include Vander’s title as the ‘Hound of the Underworld,’ Warwick’s theme playing while he’s on-screen, and in-game voice line interactions with Jinx and Vi.

The series finale shows Singed looking at a bearded figure hanging from the ceiling with claws and teasers presenting his whole silhouette. Warwick’s lore also describes him as a ‘retired Zaunite gangster who wanted to escape from the sins of his past’ before he was captured and experimented on by the scientist.

Last January, League of Legends announced that Ambessa Medarda, the Noxian warlord and mother of Mel Medarda, who appears in the first season, will be a playable character later this year. The region of Noxus is known for its brutality and militaristic society. Fans are excited to see what she’s like in the game and her interactions with characters in Arcane.

Riot Games is no stranger to bringing characters from their other ventures into League of Legends. In 2022, they introduced the leader of the chem barons of Zaun, Silco, into Teamfight Tactics—Riot Games’ take on the auto chess genre.

The first season ended with Jinx firing a rocket towards Piltover, where the council are passing a vote to give Zaun its independence. We then see brief scenes of an injured Sevika smoking a cigar, Ekko and Heimerdinger discussing, Singed looking at his latest experiment, and Ambessa Medarda gazing at her stained painting. As the rocket shatters the glass, the scene cuts to black, and we’re left to wonder what the aftermath will be like.

The season finale left us with more questions than answers, such as how Viktor will evolve to be the mechanical being he is in-game, what will happen to Zaun after the attack, and where Jinx went.

Released in 2021, Arcane was immediately a smash hit among fans of League of Legends. It was recognised as one of the best video game adaptations ever made. It became the first streaming series to win a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program as well as nine Annie Awards for Best General Audience Animated Television/Broadcast Production, Outstanding Achievement for Voice Acting in an Animated Television/Broadcast Production, and Outstanding Achievement for Writing in an Animated Television/Broadcast Production among many others.

The show’s theme song, Enemy, was written and composed by the alternative rock band Imagine Dragons and rapper JID. The band collaborated with Riot Games in the past during the 2014 World Championships, creating the song Warriors, and are big fans of League of Legends—even admitting that they have been late to concerts because they were busy playing the game.

Given this history, it’s safe to assume that we’ll see another collaboration between the Imagine Dragons and Riot Games for Arcane’s second season.

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Fans who’ve played League of Legends know that Vi’s in-game title is the ‘Piltover Enforcer’ and her partner is Caitlyn. In Arcane, she starts off as a Zaunite urchin who often goes on heists and gets imprisoned for years. It seems that season two catches up with Vi’s in-game lore as she can be seen joining the Piltover Wardens—the city’s law enforcement group led by Caitlyn, the sheriff.

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The show’s name symbolises how magic ties the world of Runeterra together, with every region and character having a different relationship with it. For instance, Piltover uses science with magic to make life easier in the name of progress, while Zaun exploits it and taps into its potential for their own benefit.

Other regions in Runeterra are also mentioned and referenced, such as Ambessa Medarda arriving from Noxus. As the show continues, we get to understand why the characters turned into what we see in League of Legends.

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