The creators of Love, Death, and Robots making an animated anthology series based on video games? With Space Marine 2, Armored Core, and Mega Man featured? And the likes of Keanu Reeves and Arnold Schwarzenegger voicing characters? Yes please.
Secret Level has been high on the list of every gamer’s most anticipated TV shows since it was first announced by Amazon earlier this year, and the final product delivers a bombastic snapshot of some great gaming stories.
As well as your Space Marines and Mega Men, there are some unusual inclusions to the roster of games. The name Concord rings alarm bells across the industry. Exodus isn’t out yet. New World is only there because it’s an Amazon thing, right? How do you even make a TV show about an MMO?
As expected from an anthology show, Secret Level is a mixed bag, but even the most mediocre episodes aren’t terrible. Perhaps Crossfire’s three fans will love that it features, but other people won’t get the deep-cut references of other games. As such, we’ve recruited three different reviewers to tackle a range of episodes: some from games they love, some they don’t, and some they haven’t played. Consider this an anthology review for an anthology show, a broad spread of opinions about a series that is, overall, an exciting addition to the gaming TV canon.
Dungeon & Dragons: The Queen’s Cradle
Eric Switzer: The first episode of the season is a great place to start. Dungeons and Dragons is so ubiquitously saturated in popular culture that you don’t need any context to understand what it’s about. Here’s a ragtag group of diverse adventurers on a quest. Action.
I enjoyed the fantasy action here and the demonstration of familiar DnD magic, but most of all I liked how earnestly it plays its silly ending. All the heroes manage to do is make a bad situation infinitely worse, but it’s shrugged off in an “all in a day’s work” way I couldn’t help but be charmed by it.
Sifu: It Takes A Life
Jade King: Sifu is already the perfect action movie, so translating that experience into animated form should be a relatively seamless task. Secret Level pulls it off by turning the game’s harsh journey of revenge into a 5-minute action masterpiece. It begins with the protagonist sitting at a dumpling stand before walking into a nightclub to get the party started/kill loads of people. He’s swiftly killed, but soon utilises the game’s revival mechanic to come back to life, even if it means aging him in the process.
Cue a sequence of brilliant action set pieces where our hero revives himself again and again in pursuit of revenge, with some highlights including a moment where he pulls a duo of knives from his bloodied chest only to use them on a corridor of unsuspecting thugs. Before the credits roll, he returns to the dumpling stand to try and convince the old lady sitting alongside him that this journey of vengeance was worthwhile.
New World: The Once And Future King
Ben Sledge: Now this is an episode that took me by surprise. Firstly, I completely missed that Arnold Schwarzenegger was on the cast list for Secret Level, so his booming voice made me start. Then I was surprised by how funny this episode was. It takes a lot to make me laugh, and New World nearly managed it.
However, its video-gamey premise of dying only to come back stronger and wrest control of the world got old fast, especially as this is also the premise of Sifu and Spelunky. I was surprised by how much heart this Amazon-game-shoehorned-into-an-Amazon-show had, but ultimately, I prefer the episodes that just exist within their game worlds to those that try to wrestle with the mechanics.
Unreal Tournament: Xan
Ben Sledge: I’ll level with you: I never played Unreal Tournament. I have no idea how much lore there is in the old-school PvP shooter and how much was invented for Secret Level, but I’ll tell you one thing: now I really want to play Unreal Tournament.
Its story of oppression and revolution fits neatly into its 20-minute runtime, which is more than can be said for some other episodes, and this felt more similar to Love, Death, and Robots than anything else in the series. Not just because of the robots either; the dystopian tale and gritty designs fit perfectly in either setting.
Warhammer 40K: And They Shall Know No Fear
Ben Sledge: Every TV show about Space Marines will be compared to Astartes. It is the way of the internet. Secret Level’s Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 sequel isn’t quite as good as the seminal YouTube series, but Astartes creator Syama Pedersen’s work on this episode shows.
I’m a big Warhammer fan, so all those little details that Pedersen became known for are delightful, and this episode is visually one of the best out of the lot. Spots of ice blue light in the darkness punctuate the visceral action sequences. The antagonist – I won’t spoil who or what it is – is a fantastic reimagining of a classic Warhammer villain. And it makes Space Marines interesting, which is more difficult than you’d think.
PAC-MAN: Circle
Eric Switzer: This is the one. The whole season is built around this stand-out episode. The producers know it too, considering how much marketing has centered around how dark and twisted this body horror reimagining of PAC-MAN is. It’s not being oversold: this is the best episode of the season and should be Secret Level’s north star should the series continue.
It’s a shame that other episodes aren’t as bold and creative as PAC-MAN. The episode gives us an entirely new take on a classic character that’s wholly unexpected and entirely captivating. While other episodes feel like extended trailers, this one proves Secret Level has value. If you only watch one episode, make it this one.
Crossfire: Good Conflict
Jade King: The Crossfire episode begins and ends with the same line: “We’re not the bad guys.” And throughout its runtime it tries to paint this generic military shooter as a complicated and nuanced moral quandary that, no matter what side you’re fighting for, you’re doing things for the right reasons.
It taps into the need to stay alive, the lines you’ll cross to get a job done, and how you’ll react to friends dying in the line of duty. It isn’t Secret Level’s best, and is incredibly grey and drab to look at, but it’s a fun enough Call of Duty mission in animated form with some surprisingly deep characters to boot.
Armored Core: Asset Management
Jade King: How do you make FromSoftware’s acclaimed mech series even more interesting? Add Keanu Reeves and hardcore drugs. The beloved actor plays a pilot who takes on any and all assignments that come his way, knowing that getting into his mech will pump drugs into his veins and ensure he remains a part of the everturning war machine.
The inside of the mechs resemble life support machines as tubes pump drugs into pilots to keep them alive, with each opponent killed being a new hit to keep them loyal. It’s a bitter expansion of the political world that Armored Core takes place in and, for the most part, its heavy-handedness works in its favour. Keanu’s character is well and truly alone too, kept company by an artificial intelligence that gaslights him into bloodshed despite being a soft, calming voice in his ear. This one is a winner.
The Outer Worlds: The Company We Keep
Ben Sledge: Why would I play The Outer Worlds when I could just replay New Vegas? I didn’t think much of Obsidian’s spacefaring RPG when I played it, but it was still a good time. Its world was vast and interesting, and its characters were great.
Archaic game design doesn’t matter in a TV adaptation, so its Secret Level episode works well. Filled with dark humour and gritty nihilism, I wouldn’t call this episode fun, but I enjoyed it all the same. It feels like a sci-fi Black Mirror episode with extra body horror. The nihilism might not be for everyone, but it certainly was for me.
Mega Man: Start
Eric Switzer: Capcom’s all-but-forgotten mascot character has always been one of my favorite video game heroes, and this episode does a fantastic job showing off exactly what makes him such a cool character. While I praised PAC-MAN for its bold reinvention, I appreciated this episode for telling a Mega Man origin story in a way we’ve never seen before.
Start is the perfect title for the episode because it feels like the start of a Mega Man series I’d love to see. Is it its own series? Is it a Sonic the Hedgehog-style movie? I’d love to see this episode grow into something more someday, because it nails the Mega Man vibe.
Exodus: Odyssey
Eric Switzer: After Concord, Exodus has the most “we paid to be here” vibes of any episode. The unreleased sci-fi RPG from Wizards of the Coast is getting a big multimedia push, first with this episode and then with a recently-announced tie-in tabletop game coming this year. If the timing didn’t already make it obvious that this episode is part of a marketing campaign, its lack of substance certainly does.
Exodus is about a runaway teen and her father, who spends his entire life following her across the galaxy. The father’s journey is tracked over decades as time dilation causes him to age slower than his daughter until he eventually catches up with her, only to find she has succumbed to old age. It’s a compelling premise, but like so many Secret Level episodes, it mostly suffers from only having 14 minutes to tell its story. It doesn’t have enough time to build its world or create interesting characters. It didn’t make me more interested in the game either, which is sorta the whole point.
Spelunky: Tally
Jade King: In Spelunky you die, die, and die some more. The game is known for killing you in many ruthless and unfair ways, but it’s impossible to resist dusting yourself off and trying for a millionth time to reach the end. This could be your run. Secret Level tries to express the hidden beauty of this design by following a young explorer who comes back to life each and every time she does, but is disheartened that she keeps on failing.
Yes, this is the third Secret Level episode centered on the theme of death and resurrection. That’s video games, I guess.
But what she lacks is perspective, and that a failed run isn’t just that, but a unique and worthwhile adventure all its own. It ended with your demise, but the journey you went on still happened and still helped you grow as a human being. This tiny little jaunt is a lush homage to the genre that is beautifully animated and surprisingly heartfelt.
Concord: Tale of the Implacable
Eric Switzer: As much as people like to grave-dance on Concord, I found the entire scenario to be incredibly grim and regretful, and this episode serves as the strangest coda imaginable to the whole saga. Just like the initial reveal trailer for Concord at Summer Games Fest, this episode depicts a setting and characters that could’ve served as the basis for a pretty interesting game, unfortunately that game was not Concord.
It’s very Guardians of the Galaxy coded, starting with a jailbreak that devolves into a comedy of errors, and ending with a grand call to adventure. It’s an entertaining short – one of the funniest of the season – that will leave you with a strange empty feeling. It’s not just that the world and these characters are gone, it’s that they never had a chance to live.
Honor of Kings: The Way of All Things
Ben Sledge: How do you adapt a MOBA to television? Arcane certainly has the right idea, but Honor of Kings takes a different approach. Instead of creating personalities you care about and projecting them onto characters you know, Secret Level goes spiritual with Honor of Kings. Tackling subjects as broad as fate and free will, Honor of Kings never really gets off the ground.
One thing Honor of Kings has going for it is the fact that it got me thinking about the nature of Secret Level as a whole. Do I really enjoy the episodes I liked, or was I just happy to see my favourite worlds and characters realised with slick animations and cool, new stories? Did I think the Warhammer 40K episode was the best because of its creative fight scenes, or because I’m a big Warhammer fan? Would I have loved Honor of Kings if I’d put 1,000 hours into the game? I don’t have the answers to these questions, and you’ll have to watch for yourself to see if the same is true for you.
PlayStation
Jade King: Secret Level’s PlayStation episode is a weird one. It follows a courier who works within a gig economy where every delivery is about chasing a high score to earn not only money, but new cosmetics for their outfits, scooters, and more. The story tries to compare what video games have become in the live-service era to what we left behind, and how much more fun can be had by throwing aside these cynical modern ideas and embracing what video games have always been – art.
But this message simply doesn’t land when the entire episode follows a character being chased by a bunch of out of place PlayStation cameos ranging from Helldivers to Shadow of the Colossus. A visually spectacular but thematically hollow episode you can skip if you aren’t desperate to see Kratos show up for three seconds, and a bit of a boring note to end this series on.
Secret Level is a computer-animated anthology series that tells bold, unique, and emotive stories set in popular video game franchise worlds.