Adventure Time Officially Returns With New Episodes In Less Than 2 Weeks

Published Sep 22, 2026, 8:45 PM EDT

Zach Moser has been writing for ScreenRant since 2022, covering movies, classic TV, and streaming TV. His areas of expertise cover a wide range of genres with a particular interest in horror and drama, and the conversations around the TV and film industry. When he's not covering the latest film releases or chronicling the latest season of a new show, he's writing humor pieces for McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Slackjaw, and Points In Case or working on short stories and his second novel. 

Adventure Time is back for more episodes this October with the arrival of a new season in the animated fantasy franchise. Pendleton Ward's Adventure Time is one of the modern animation triumphs. The fantasy comedy adventure series ran for 10 successful seasons between 2010 and 2018 and left a lasting legacy in its place.

The colorful, creeping, triumphant show follows Finn the Human and Jake the Dog, two friends and adventurers who travel the magical, strange Land of Ooo, greeting and defeating everything from gumdrop people to the cosmic manifestation of death itself. As the show goes on, a deep story, connected through eons, is revealed.

Adventure Time has spawned an impressive franchise, with Distant Lands, an anthology of extra-long episodes, in 2020 and 2021; Fionna and Cake, a spinoff featuring alternate-universe versions of Finn and Jake, in 2023 and still going; and the latest addition, Adventure Time: Side Quests.

The first season of Side Quests premiered on June 29, 2026, with 20 episodes, and season 2 is already on the way, set for October 2, 2026, with another 20-episode season. While Pendleton Ward is no longer the showrunner, Nate Cash, longtime creative director of the original Adventure Time, has a handle on things.

How Adventure Time: Side Quests Connects To The Main Show

Adventure Time: Side Quests is not a prequel, nor is it set within the same universe as Adventure Time in the way that Cake and Fionna and Distant Lands are. Side Quests is a soft reboot of the series. It follows most of the same characters and brings back most of the original cast.

It could be read as something of a prequel, beginning just a bit before the first season of the original show, but not much earlier, and the timelines eventually match up. Unlike the other shows in the franchise, Side Quests has not shown an interest in serialized storytelling, instead operating within a traditional, story-of-the-week style of television.

The animation and art of the series are also different. Compared to the original and the other spin-offs, Side Quests is more simplistic, with less detail in character designs. However, these simple designs allow for a wide range of character emotions and overly-stylized moments which work wonderfully with the fantastical storylines.

Reaction To Adventure Time: Side Quests Season 1 Explained

Adventure Time: Side Quests, in some regards, could be seen as a cynical attempt to repeat the success of the original and bring in another generation of young viewers whose family is subscribed to Disney+ and Hulu, not HBO. But it's far from that, and the series is a clear labor of love.

Though it retreads the beginning of Adventure Time, Side Quests manages to refresh the story and give more reasons to watch. This series is certainly more reminiscent of the early seasons of the show, where the serialized nature of Adventure Time and the darker parts of the lore weren't as present.

This has led to frustration from some fans, who see the series as a step back for the franchise, rather than an extension. The tone of Adventure Time: Side Quests may be a bit lighter and looser than what Adventure Time ended up becoming, but it's still very much in line with the tone the series took off with.

Cast

• 

  Archer / Meat Man (voice)

• 

  John DiMaggio

  Jake the Dog (voice)

• 

  Maria Bamford

  Granny Odlay / Shirley / Boiling Man (voice)

• 

  Sasha Knight

  Finn the Human (voice)