The teaser for Arcane’s second, and possibly final, season was released with an announcement date for November 2024. In the Dev Update, the team reiterated that this is just the first of many stories that will be told in the Runeterra setting to be released to a wider audience.
The following is a breakdown of new information from the latest teaser. This analysis WILL have spoilers, so venture at your own peril!
Piltover and Noxus
Ambessa Medarda confirms that, following the finale of Arcane’s first season, Piltover’s council is dead. It’s unlikely Jayce and Viktor are dead, but as for the others, including Mel, they might not have the plot armor required to survive the explosion.
Regardless, Piltover is introduced as destabilized. Even if not every council member is literally dead, the leadership of the city of progress has expired, likely giving way to an intervention from Noxus by the hand of Ambessa.
Vi and Caitlyn return, seemingly both as Enforcers. Caitlyn’s signature Hextech Rifle makes an appearance as it does in League of Legends, and Vi still wields Jayce’s Atlas Gauntlets. It’s really anybody’s guess how Jayce ended up okay with that. It’s possible that Ambessa successfully convinced Jayce to use Hextech for combat, but it’s more likely that he’s been strong-armed into agreeing or outright ignored.
Chemtanks appear, seemingly a pretty common thug in Zaun, which is perhaps now a newly formed independent state. Caitlyn leads a strike team into the underground with the objectives of finding Jinx, terminating the production of Shimmer, and getting rid of those still loyal to the late Silco.
More Zaunites appear, Singed seemingly being arrested by Enforcers, and Sevika slinging around a brand new prosthetic arm, this time seemingly fashioned and augmented by Jinx herself. It’s possible that in the small frame of time following the bombing in Piltover’s council, Jinx took control of Silco’s domain, with Sevika remaining as her right-hand man and top enforcer. She’s also seen wielding Jinx’s pistol, further reinforcing this theory. We’re also very curious to see Singed interact with any agents from Noxus, as in the League of Legends canon, Noxus hires Singed to create biological weapons to use in their invasion of Ionia. Although we’ve been reminded time and time again that these are not the same canon, it’d still be a plot point that confirms that at least the Noxian invasion of Ionia is imminent in the Arcane canon as well.
As we all had hoped, our beloved Hound of the Underground, Vander, makes a return as Warwick, the wolf-boogeyman of Zaun. We sadly don’t get a ton of information about him specifically, or Singed, but it’s at the very least confirmed that he will appear.
Lastly, we’ve got some updates on Jinx, who’s currently designated as public enemy number one in Piltover. As written above, it’s highly likely she’s taken Silco’s throne as top dog in Zaun and carried out his plans for an independent nation of Zaun, free from Piltover’s administration and their corrupt Enforcers. It’s still unclear what kind of relationship Jinx maintains with Sevika and the barons and gangsters that Silco had to drag to heel in order to stay at the top. The possibilities range from them being too intimidated to step up to the new chem-queen of Zaun, or having been genuinely convinced that she’s the best option for the Underground’s continued survival at this point.
The two best pairs of inventors in Piltover and Zaun didn’t receive much attention. Ekko and Heimerdinger both make brief appearances in the teaser, but Jayce and Viktor are suspiciously absent entirely. Although the timeline of events in League of Legends is different from Arcane’s (with Viktor having formed his cult of Glorious Evolution before Vander became Warwick), the Zaunite inventor has yet to realize his true potential. Jayce’s arc seems somewhat finished, so it’s actually not an impossibility that he may have perished during the finale of Season 1.
And that wraps up our analysis of the latest Dev Updates and Arcane’s new teaser. We’ll have our ears straight to the ground for any new information on new developments should they come out!
