Picture: Netflix
Production on One Piece season 3 has long been something of an open secret, with filming expected to begin in 2025. While the official renewal was only announced recently, a new update confirms that the cast and crew will return to South Africa just ahead of Thanksgiving this year.
In case you missed it, Netflix officially announced season 3 of the show during the One Piece day celebration in August 2025 after months of speculation about the series’ future. Of course, season 2 of the show has yet to air as of the time of publishing, and although it was hoped that it could sneak into 2025, it will instead be released sometime in 2026.
The most recent update we got regarding an actual filming date came in June, with a Q4 2025 start date mentioned. Joe Manganiello was the source of that, telling CinemaBlend that “We’ve taken a break between Season 2 and Season 3, I’ll be heading back later on this year, and we’ll be working on the next part of the story.” A few fans even went to great lengths to predict that a November 2025 start date was most likely, and now that’s confirmed.
The new season is currently set to shoot for over 207 days, with production due to kick off in Cape Town, South Africa, which the series has called home since season 1, beginning November 24th, 2025. According to production listings, the series won’t wrap up until June 19th, 2026.
Fans have also sourced the project codename for the new season, too (which we’ve verified and found ourselves, too). As with many of Netflix’s high-profile shows, they operate under codenames to stop the prying public from tracking them (that doesn’t stop us trying anyway!).
Season 1 of One Piece was filmed under the codename of Project Renaissance, while season 2 was filmed under the codename of Project Panda. For season 3, its codename will be Project Arcadia, which, as fans have pointed out, is a synonym of Utopia, with some speculating its Skypiea foreshadowing and related to the Paradise in reference to the Grand Line.
The series is under the company names of Film Afrika Entertainment and FA Project Arcadia with Tomorrow Studios.
What do these production dates mean for the release date? As you can probably guess by now, it almost certainly rules out any 2026 return for the show, but instead, you can expect S3 sometime on your screens in 2027.
Beyond that, details on season 3 of One Piece remain slim. We do know that Ian Stokes, who has been co-executive producer on the show, is joining Joe Tracz as co-showrunner, taking over the reins from Matt Owens, who departed the project earlier this year.
We’ll be keeping our ears to the ground for any new details on One Piece season 3 as soon as we hear more. In the meantime, let us know if you’re excited for season 3 and, indeed, season 2 in the comments.