Tim Miller Explains the Inspiration Behind Secret Level

Secret Level has fans excited about the prospect of a video game-centric anthology series from a creator and team that’s made a name for itself with the medium, and now they get the final word on the thought process behind the idea that’s set to end the streaming year on a solid note for gamers.

With the Amazon Prime platform offering both a gaming service in Prime Gaming and a popular streaming service in Prime Video, it was the perfect home for Secret Level. An anthology series with each episode inspired by a different video game, Secret Level instantly cut through the crowd for some serious attention when it started confirming some of the game collaborations featured in the upcoming release. Also working in its favor was the fact that in addition to the stellar collaborations and being greenlit at the perfect streaming home, the show was also the brainchild of Tim Miller and his Blur Studios in conjunction with Amazon MGM Studios. In addition to a plethora of other commendable achievements, Miller has most recently been best known for his Emmy-winning creation Love, Death & Robots.

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The forthcoming season features the first sequel to a previous episode and the return of writer John Scalzi.

Fans and critics have shown a great appreciation for Miller’s past work with good reason, as many episodes of Love, Death & Robots could easily spawn full-on shows of their own or even big-budget movies. Now, fans get to hear what inspired Miller to take this experience and the video game industry on in his next project. In an interview with Variety, creator Tim Miller was asked about the inspiration behind the upcoming series, and he gave a pretty straightforward response. “It seems like a simple idea: Take characters from video games and tell original stories,” Miller explained. “It’s what my company Blur has been doing for almost 30 years now. When I sold “Love, Death & Robots” to Netflix, I played a reel of game animation from Blur studio and said, “Give us some money and we’ll give you more shit like this.” Here we have 15 different games, and so we get the fanbase from all those games from “Warhammer” to “Sifu.” It’s a tide that will lift all the boats in this harbor.”

While the series is going to have some really iconic needle movers like God of War with distinct, important visual styles, Miller also discussed where the series is still going to be able to bring some of the team’s distinct art direction to the table when queried on the look of Secret Level. “The feel of individual episodes is a refined version of what you see if you play the game,” Miller promises. “But with “Mega Man,” or “Pac Man” for instance, the door’s open to do anything because there’s not one look. Then we go into “Love, Death & Robots” mode of what’s the coolest way we can tell a story?” This mix of comfortable, recongnizable design and blank canvases of visual innovation seems perfectly formulated to give gamers and casual viewers a treat as they delve into Secret Level.

The show is shaping up to be a solid one, and it could open the door for even more collaborations of this sort between video games and more freeform creative projects. Viewers can look forward to enjoying another stellar showcase from Miller and his team when Secret Level airs at the end of the year, reportedly still including the episode based on the now-defunct hero shooter Concord, despite its spectacular failure and subsequent cancellation. Fans are going to have to tune in to see how well that episode and all the others play (pun intended).

Secret Level is set to release for streaming on December 10, 2024, exclusively on Amazon Prime Video.

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Source: Variety