The Most Memorable Quotes In Secret Level

Summary

• Secret Level’s anthology series celebrates video games through spectacular VFX, animation, and storytelling.
• Episodes feature games like D&D, Pac-Man, and Armored Core, capturing essence with limited dialogue.
• Memorable moments from each episode highlight character growth, twists, and unexpected endings.

The Prime Video anthology series Secret Level is all about celebrating video games of all genres and notoriety. That means you should expect spectacular VFX, animation, and set pieces with enough polish that they could be used in an actual game. However, that also means the storytelling and writing should be big winners as well, and they clearly are.

Secret Level episodes sample a range of games from Armored Core to New World, Sifu, D&D, and Warhammer 40K, and these animated shorts do an excellent job of capturing the essence of these games, even with extremely limited dialogue and storytelling.

10

“Your Kindness Is Precisely What Makes You Worthy Of Being Freed.”

– Oriel

The Dungeons & Dragons episode of Secret Level saw each character have the right kind of motivations. Mora and her party rescue a young boy named Solon, who’s been marked all over his body by the Cult of the Dragon, and it causes him to hallucinate and be plagued by a voice that’s corrupting his mind. He even at one point stabs Mora, thinking it’s the entity possessing him.

Mora gets Solon safely to the golden dragon, Oriel, and the dragon agrees to remove the darkness within the boy and free him of the curse. Solon is then worried that what he has inside will corrupt and harm Oriel, and it’s because of that sincerity and thoughtfulness that Oriel wants to save Solon. Once it’s done, Oriel indeed sadly turns into Tiamat and Solon stands by his party’s side to help them fight the dragon.

9

“Better Question. You Are The Chosen. And Only The Chosen May Escape The Maze.”

– Puck

The Pac-Man episode provided a refreshing spin on the character, one leaning more toward horror, and it gets very dark toward the end, as it’s meant to resemble Shadow Labyrinth, announced a few days after Secret Level’s debut.. You start out with a mysterious humanoid character who knows nothing about who he is or what his purpose is. Out comes Puck, a yellow orb resembling Pac-Man, to explain.

Puck tells the protagonist he’s a special warrior who’s been chosen, “and only the chosen may escape the maze.” This quote ultimately plays into the main twist of the episode, which is predictable if you know what Pac-Man is about.

The maze here is a labyrinthine alien planet where the hero faces giant monsters left and right and must eat them. When reaching the end of the maze, however, Puck reveals that the hero was being manipulated the entire time, because only Puck escapes the maze using these humanoid warriors as its host.

8

“He Told Me You Put 60 Years Of Your Life In Them. Was It Worth It?”

– MC

At just ten minutes, Sifu was one of the shortest episodes, but it also had the most impact. You start with the main protagonist, MC, as his young self enjoying some dumplings at a stand owned by an older woman named Li. Through their conversation, you learn she’s been making dumplings for 60 years. This moment then becomes even more significant and memorable in the ending.

Though it’s only been one night, MC has been resurrected multiple times during combat, so he returns to get some dumplings as an old man. The owner comments that his grandson loves her dumplings, not realizing it’s really him. He says his ‘grandson’ told him she gave 60 years of her life to making them, echoing back what she shared.

But in this moment, it’s really MC reflecting on his old age and whether losing so much time to a task (in his case, dying beating up bad guys) is worth it.

7

“You’re A Few Grams Of Unstable Isotope Stuck In My Brain Stem. The Real Question Is Why You’re Such An A**hole.”

– Pilot

The Armored Core episode worked great because, in the games, you don’t really get to hear from the pilot inside the mech suit, but rather the AI voices of each AC unit. It also helps to have Keanu Reeves bring a sprinkle of his Johnny Silverhand personality into the voice role. Reeves’ pilot bickers a lot with his AI voice, and their banter is fun to watch, but this is perhaps the funniest moment to come from that.

Reeves is augmented, and that’s why he has the voice inside him, but he doesn’t really know what it is. It can see that he’s smiling, so he playfully claims that it has eyes. The AI pokes fun at him for not fully understanding what it is, to which the pilot responds matter-of-factly that it’s a small “unstable isotope” lodged in his brain, but can’t comprehend what’s making it behave like such an a**hole to him.

6

“Captain, We Don’t Have Time For Camping.”

– Gamemaster

Secret Level found a fun and clever way to throw in a reference to the bane of multiplayer shooters – camping. During the Unreal Tournament episode, the captain of the Elite Guard is sent into the arena to finish off the last remaining robots stoking rebellion, and his initial method is to camp in a spot and snipe them.

His boss, the Gamemaster, takes note of what he’s doing and calls him out for camping in a hilarious reference that every gamer would understand. This comment causes the captain to change strategy, so he leaves his sniper post to deal with the robots directly.

5

“Congrats. You Got Me, I’m A Hypocrite. Unlike All You Pure-Hearted Mercenaries Shooting People For Money. I’m Done Now. I Deliver This Case, I Get F**k Off Money, And You Guys Don’t Need To Kill Me. I’ll Be Drinking Myself To Death On A Beach In Bimini. ”

– Mahler

In Crossfire: Good Conflict, you’re introduced to two separate teams of mercenaries, where one is protecting a guy named Mahler and the other is hunting him down for an important case handcuffed to him. Mahler bashes the other group as “scum” when he’s reminded by Fitz that he’s also taken checks from them in the past, labeling him a hypocrite.

Mahler is pretty much scum himself, as you can tell by how he talks and delivers this quote. He also rebuts by calling Fitz and his mercenary squad “pure-hearted mercenaries” paid to kill. He also lets them know that he’ll be out of the way after he delivers the case and he’ll instead be so rich, that he’ll be drinking himself to death on vacation rather than worrying about them coming for his life.

4

“I Was Expecting A Battle, Not An Execution. Some Theatrics. A Little Drama To Make The Message Take Hold. Not This. I Mean There’s Nothing Dramatic About Crushing The Dream Of A Toaster.”

– Gamemaster

The Unreal Tournament episode brought some excellent characters and dialogue in addition to tons of action. One of the season’s best villains is the Gamemaster, the figure who controls the Gladiator-style Unreal Tournaments and she becomes someone you cannot stand. Her cruelty is pretty much summarized in this quote.

She sends robots out to die, but she doesn’t want a quick death, which is what happens in one of the rounds. She wants the audience to be entertained and make the matches suspenseful with “a little drama” and “some theatrics.” To throw further shade and demonstrate how little care she has for the poor robots, she calls their deaths like “crushing the dream of a toaster.”

3

“Centuries Ago, I Chose A Child Filled With Pain And Rage. A Child Who Had Never Known Fear. What Could A Soul Like That Be Capable Of?”

– Metaurus

The Warhammer 40K episode had a strong start and a strong finish with this quote perfectly connecting it all. The Ultramarine Metaurus narrates the opening moment, which shows a bloodied child in the rain dragging a heavy Power Sword, saying this boy “had never known fear.” This is the main trait of space marines, that they must not fear anything, and the final showdown demonstrates why.

When the marines reach the end of their objective, they are confronted by a creepy Sorcerer of Tzeentch, which freezes them in time and kills them in their mind with their own fears; except for Titus. It then becomes apparent that the boy Metaurus was referring to grew into the Ultramarine Titus, and it’s solely Titus who could defeat the Sorcerer, so that’s just one feat a soul like his is capable of.

2

“I Have Given Years, My Heart, My Very Soul For Power Beyond The Dreams Of Any But An Immortal King. That Crown Belongs To Aelstrom!”

– King Aelstrom

The episode that will take you by even more surprise than the Pac-Man one is Secret Level’s New World: The Once and Future King. The entire theme is Arnold Schwarzenegger’s King Aelstrom never giving up in trying to seize the power of Aeternum from its current king. At first, it’s funny to see him fail, but then things turn grim when he eventually resorts to dark magic.

He becomes dark Aelstrom and his menacing factor dials up to a hundred, storming into the king’s quarters and saying this quote with a booming and assertive voice. Aelstrom is a conqueror and he doesn’t understand what Aeternum is about, even when his dark magic is quickly stripped by King Zimah and his friend, Scaevola, tries to get him to talk some sense into him. It’s Aelstrom’s lowest moment.

1

“Scaevola. Forged From The Crown Of A King. For You, Aelstrom’s Friend. I Mean… My Friend.”

– King Aelstrom

Not only is this the most memorable quote from the first season of Secret Level but it’s the most memorable moment as well. It’s touching, heartfelt, and sweet, and shows the full character growth and completed arc of Aelstrom. He finally goes from a power-hungry king to a kind-hearted person who wants to stay friends with Scaevola by doing a generous deed that would leave the latter speechless.

When Aelstrom washed ashore on Aeternum after his shipwreck, Scaevola and he quickly buddied up. Their friendship had a strain throughout the episode, and Aelstrom even made fun of Scaevola for being crippled with a missing right arm. Contrast that to this symbolic ending, where Aelstrom forges a prosthetic arm from his crown and gifts it to Scaevola, even dropping using his name in the third-person when he talks.

The shot of Aelstrom and Scaevola locking their hands together, now with his new prosthetic, is a nod to the handshake scene between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Carl Weathers in Predator, which makes this whole scene even better.