It Sure Looks Like Arcane Season 2 Is Doing Another Time Skip (2024)

Netflix and Riot Games have provided us with yet another look at Arcane’s second season. It was an incredibly brief look, but contains more than enough details for us to draw a few huge conclusions about where exactly Vi, Caitlyn, and Jinx will be headed this November.

This brief snippet of footage was released as part of a wider montage, while Arcane will also be featured in some capacity at the Annecy Festival this weekend. Hype for the new season has already reached fever pitch, evidenced by the overwhelming reaction to the trailer, which has quickly resulted in oodles of fanart and speculation, which I’m more happy to join in with.

What The Arcane Teaser Tells Us About Season 2

So this actually depends on whether you are viewing the normal teaser (12 seconds) on the official Arcane Twitter account, or the extended teaser (15 seconds) released by Netflix.

Three extra seconds isn’t a lot, but you’ll be surprised by how much additional information is squeezed into just a couple of frames. For the sake of making sure I cover everything, we’re going to focus on the extended teaser for now. It opens with Vi tinkering with her refurbished gauntlets, which still glow a harsh neon-blue, billowing out smoke as she prepares to make use of them.

We catch a glimpse of Vi in her regular outfit in the extended teaser as she gets ready for a fight, before immediately transitioning to a new, potentially time-skipped version who is wearing a Piltover Enforcer outfit of all things. As I feared, Vi is now a cop.

Vi Is A Cop, Caitlyn Is A Leader, And Is That Ren?

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She has broader shoulders, more defined muscles, and a uniform with a popped collar and a couple of shortened sleeves. Also, yes, I am very gay for the butch girl who loves punching. I am also very gay for Caitlyn, who is seen standing alongside Vi in her own Enforcer outfit. She’s wearing a white beret which indicates that she is the leader of her squad, made up of Vi, herself, two new characters I don’t recognise, and seemingly an older Ren, known as Marcus’ daughter. If it isn’t her, it’s certainly a spitting image, and she looks much older than she did in the first season.

I wouldn’t be surprised if a bunch of outcasts decided to join up with the Enforcers following the tragic conclusion of the first season, both to add a feeling of stability to their lives and potentially take revenge on Jinx for everything she’s done. Arcane embracing yet another time skip felt strange to me at first, but I also believed Vi would never become a cop like she did in the games, but here we are.

Chances are if the second season does indeed implement a time skip following the deaths at the end of the first, we’ll be asked to pilfer through the wreckage and figure out how some of these characters ended up in such a place. What led Vi to abandon her ideals to become an Enforcer? Did Caitlyn lose any loved ones after the destruction of the council? It would give both of them ample reasons to fight, join a cause, and grow as people in ways that won’t become clear for years, or at least until the events of this season delve into them.

Jinx Is Also Back, Which Isn’t Much Of A Surprise

The extended teaser concludes with Jinx lighting up a flare atop a destroyed structure as the camera pulls out from her character before the screen fades to black. Her design is identical to the first season as far as I can tell, but the promotional materials for Arcane - including an excellent poster - has her cradling Vi’s head as she looks on in fear. It’s the exact opposite of the sibling dynamic we saw expressed in the past, and hints towards Jinx becoming this dark and controlling influence on Vi’s life as she becomes an Enforcer. Or maybe something else entirely. Like I said, this is a teaser designed to have us asking lofty questions like this.

A previous teaser also revealed that Warwick could be introduced in the form of a revived Vander, which will undoubtedly result in Vi and Jinx settling their differences or drifting further apart than ever before. Your surrogate father being revived as a bloodthirsty killing machine is bound to do something to your sibling relationship at the very least.

I bet we’ll be seeing more and more of Arcane leading up to its November release, and with any luck, will have more than 15 measly seconds to work with.

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