Netflix and Riot Games' critically acclaimed animated series Arcane is getting a home release throughout international markets later this year.
Academy Award-winning producer and distributor GKIDS has partnered with Anime Ltd. & Plaion Pictures, Plain Archive, Shout! Factory, and Sugoi to release the first season of Arcane on digital download-to-own and physical home media in international markets in 2024. As detailed in the press release:
ARCANE will be released on digital download-to-own and physical home entertainment in Europe, South Korea, and Australia/New Zealand by Anime Ltd. & Plaion Pictures, Plain Archive, and Sugoi respectively. It will be released on digital download-to-own platforms in Latin America by Shout! Factory, who will additionally handle physical product distribution for North America alongside GKIDS.
A full product array, including digital and premium editions as well as a 4K version exclusive to the home entertainment release, will be announced soon.
Developed by Riot Games and Fortiche Productions for Netflix, Arcane is set in the universe of Riot's popular video game League of Legends. The series, which is co-created by Christian Linke and Alex Yee, primarily focuses on sisters Vi and Jinx (formerly known as Powder) "as they become caught in the power struggle between the utopian city of Piltover and the oppressed underground city of Zaun."
The official synopsis from Netflix reads:
Arcane tells the origin story of two iconic League of Legends champions, who just so happen to be sisters. Jinx (Ella Purnell) — also known as Powder — and Vi (Hailee Steinfeld) find themselves on rival sides of a brewing war between the utopian city Piltover and its oppressed underbelly Zaun.
The series debuted in November 2021 to widespread acclaim, receiving praise for its animation, storytelling and worldbuilding, action sequences, character development, and voice acting. The first season scored a perfect 100% on Rotten Tomatoes with an equally impressive 96% Audience Score. In 2022, it became the first streaming series to win a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program and won an Annie Award for Best General Audience Animated Television Broadcast Production.
The award-winning series will return to Netflix this November for its second and final season. While the story of Arcane will end with its second season, series co-creator and Riot Games creative director Christian Linke has already teased future stories that will be told based on the League of Legends universe.
"Arcane is just the beginning of our larger storytelling journey and partnership with the wonderful animation studio that is Fortiche," Linke said in a League Dev Update last month. "From the very beginning, since we started working on this project, we had a very specific ending in mind, which means the story of Arcane wraps up with this second season. But Arcane is just the first of many stories that we want to tell in Runeterra.”
Arcane Season 2 premieres this November, exclusively on Netflix.