Arcane co-creator Christian Linke has issued what is probably the final say on a second season that has divided viewers and garnered strong reactions from its fanbase.
In a lengthy 500-word response to a Reddit thread erroneously titled, ‘Holy shit. Co-creator Christian Linke just said in the “Arcane Afterglow” that the Jayce/Viktor ending feels unresolved to him & they were not given the time’, Linke began, “Some theories here [are] a bit too far out there.”
To the opening post’s first point, Linke replied, “No, we didn’t ask [animation studio] Fortiche to produce a 1h30 final episode. It’s quite the opposite, our scripts are always shorter than what Fortiche ends up proposing in the storyboard phase.”
For his part, Linke told us it was “mostly” action that was cut, and said in a prior interview with Dexerto weeks before release that they always intended to chip away at the original cut’s length.
From there, Linke addressed other rumors (with one being that corporate pressure was never a factor), including issues of time and budget constraints.
“It would have been great to have more time to work on this second season, or extra time to add to the episodes, but we didn’t have it,” Linke said. “For a number of reasons. Budget being one. We have been EXTREMELY lucky to get these absolutely insane budgets from Riot to produce Arcane. We all feel incredibly lucky. NOBODY ELSE gets these types of budgets. Please don’t forget that.”
Linke added, “Don’t forget that at the end of the day, this is just a collective of human beings, of people. I would assume that there is no other TV show that has taken as long as Arcane to produce two seasons, without any pauses. Arcane is unrivaled in sheer scope of high fidelity animation. I don’t wanna use any of these things as an excuse, but, yeah… this work demands a lot on a human level.”
While the co-creator and showrunner admitted the show wasn’t “perfect”, he remained proud of the “hefty swings” taken on creative: “We have made you feel more than you’ve ever felt when watching animated characters,” Linke said.
You can see the full post for yourself below.
While it may be unusual for a show creator or showrunner to face so many complaints head-on, Linke has been nothing but transparent in recent days. He told GamesRadar+ that while he “not happy” about criticism of Arcane season 2’s pacing and plot being rushed, he would “respect” fans’ point of view.
Linke explained, “We did approach season 2 a little bit differently in how we structured the episodes because we wanted, as creatives, to take these bets [and] take these swings. It seems like for most people that works really well. There’s some people who specifically wanted to see the continuation of season one in that regard and are disappointed. I’m not happy that they feel that way, but I respect that.”
For more, check out our breakdown of the Arcane season 2 ending, why we’re not getting an Arcane season 3, and our picks for the best shows on Netflix.