Arrow to end with shortened season 8

The Emerald Archer is hanging up his bow and quiver.

Arrow's recently announced eighth season will be its last one, EW has confirmed. The CW superhero drama's final season will consist of 10 episodes.

Star Stephen Amell, who has plays the Oliver Queen/Green Arrow, announced the news via Twitter Wednesday afternoon.

"Playing Oliver Queen has been the greatest professional experience of my life…but you can't be a vigilante forever," Amell tweeted. "Arrow will return for a final run of 10 episodes this Fall. There's so much to say… for now I just want to say thank you."

During a Facebook Live, Amell explained that he brought up the idea of leaving the show with executive producer Greg Berlanti last year. "Toward the end of season 6, I approached Greg Berlanti, who I will be thanking in a second, and said that I thought both personally and professionally that, at the end of my commitment this coming season, it would be the best for me to move on," said Amell, explaining that he made the decision, in part, because of his family.

Even though his time as the Green Arrow is ending, Amell offered some hope that this might not be the last time we see him in in the Arrowverse. "Something tells me even when I'm done, I won't be gone. If you've watched the Arrowverse, you should understand that," he said. "It's no Supernatural, but it's been a good run." <iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fstephenamell%2Fvideos%2F993782404151772%2F&amp;show_text=0&amp;width=267" width="267" height="476" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen="" class="" resize="0" replace_attributes="1" name=""></iframe>

When the Warner Bros. TV-produced series debuted in 2012, it began as a grounded, Dark Knight trilogy-inspired take on the Green Arrow. After five years in hell (read: getting shipwrecked on an island, fighting with mercenaries, thwarting bioweapon attacks, joining the Russian Bratva, and more), Oliver returned home intent on avenging his father's murder and saving his city as a bow and arrow-wielding vigilante. Along the way, he picked up several allies, like John Diggle (David Ramsey) and tech-genius Felicity (Emily Bett Rickards), and the show also spawned an entire universe (a.k.a. Arrowverse) that includes The Flash, DC's Legends of Tomorrow, and Supergirl.

"This was a difficult decision to come to, but like every hard decision we've made for the past seven years, it was with the best interests of Arrow in mind," said executive producers Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim, and Beth Schwartz (showrunner) in a statement obtained by EW. "We're heartened by the fact that Arrow has birthed an entire universe of shows that will continue on for many years to come. We're excited about crafting a conclusion that honors the show, its characters and its legacy and are grateful to all the writers, producers, actors, and — more importantly — the incredible crew that has sustained us and the show for over seven years."

The decision to end Arrow, which is currently in the middle of its seventh season, isn't entirely surprising because it is old and shows tend to get more expensive as they age. Furthermore, the show has experienced some recent cast turnover with the departures of Echo Kellum, Willa Holland, and Paul Blackthorne and last month, CW president Mark Pedowitz hinted that the network was starting to think about the future of the network's DC Comics programming.

"What I'd really like to do is, things will age and we want to get the next generation of shows to keep this CW-DC universe going for as many years as possible," Pedowitz told reporters in at the Television Critics Association winter press tour in January.

What remains to be seen is if and how Arrow's conclusion relates to the next crossover "Crisis on Infinite Earths," which will have a profound affect on the entire Arrowverse. "It will take some big swings," said Pedowitz. "It is Crisis on Infinite Earths and if you know the history, things collapse." Perhaps Arrow will be one of the things that falls?

Arrow — which currently also Rick Gonzalez, Juliana Harkavy, Colton Haynes, Katie Cassidy Rodgers, and Sea Shimooka — airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on The CW.

This post has been updated.

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