Arcane Showrunner Says Stray Kids Song Is Not Just in Trailer, Will Appear in 'Fun' Season 2 Moment

Stray Kids have come to play, and they're just getting started. 

Earlier this fall, Netflix's Arcane released its Season 2 soundtrack which featured the K-pop phenom. They contributed to the song "Come Play" with artists Young Miko and Tom Morello, and Riot Games Music dropped the track on Oct. 16 ahead of Arcane Season 2's premiere. In fact, the anthemic banger is used in the latest trailer for the animated series set in the League of Legends universe. But Arcane co-creator Christian Linke said the track featuring Stray Kids lives beyond the teaser video. 

"The song is not just in the trailer," Linke told TV Guide. "It's also in the show, and you'll understand how this song came about when you see it in the episode." 

The showrunner expanded on how the collaboration with the K-pop group came about. "We were lucky, I think they were on tour at the time, and we somehow found time for them to do a demo — and we're like, oh sh--, this could be really cool," he recalled. "There [are] League players amongst Stray Kids, and so I think it was this suggestion of, hey, maybe this could work."

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Linke said the crossover between K-pop and gaming has long been on his mind. "There's a certain overlap that we always like," he said. In Arcane Season 1, the creative team had attempted to feature K-pop in the show. "We tried to make it work in Season 1, we couldn't make it work, to be honest with you," Linke said. "There was a K-pop demo for a moment in Season 1, it just didn't click." But "Come Play" was different. "It just felt like it worked," he said. The showrunner didn't reveal more details, but said the track appears in Season 2 at "a moment in our episode that is going to be fun." 

Besides, all signs had pointed to this collaboration taking place. Linke remembers listening to the first version of "Come Play," which was also his introduction to Stray Kids. After hearing the demo, he had left the office room with one of the composers. "I walked through this hall where there's a bunch of Riot employees, and there's a big Stray Kids neon light on the wall because one of the employees was a massive Stray Kids fan," he recalled. "And so I was like, oh, that's kind of a sign, literally."

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Arcane Season 2 Act One premieres Nov. 9, with Acts Two and Three releasing in the following weeks.

Stream Arcane Season 1 on Netflix.