The beginning of the end has arrived for Marvel Studios' What If...

? The animated series that launched for Disney+ subscribers in 2021 has begun rolling out its final run, with a new episode premiering every day between now and the launch of the big finale on Sunday, December 29. It's has regularly been a delight, giving Marvel Cinematic Universe fans a tour around the multiverse and offering a glimpse at what might have been had circumstances in the franchise been different – but just because the series is ending doesn't necessarily mean that its presence in the canon is just going to fade away. Brad Winderbaum, Marvel Studios' head of Streaming, Television and Animation, recently sat down with Entertainment Weekly to discuss the final season of What If.

..? , and right off the bat he suggests that the show is concluding in direct correlation with the trajectory of the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Before too long, audiences will be preparing to sit down in theaters for the Multiverse Saga's capstone films Avengers: Doomsday (arriving in May 2026) and Avengers: Secret Wars (arriving in May 2027), and where the MCU's first animated series concludes evidently feeds into what is being planned . Said Winderbaum, There are bigger universe reasons to culminate it now. If you're a fan of the overall MCU, you'll notice that the first season premiered after Loki season 1, when the Sacred Timeline blossomed into a multiverse and all of a sudden all these new stories emerged.

That.