Secret Level premieres on Prime Video with eight episodes on December 10, adopted by further episodes debuting on December 17.
For a couple of episodes at the least, the animated anthology collection Secret Level appears to depict a decent vary of video video games and genres. The Dungeons & Dragons episode goes for a fantasy journey, whereas the one for Unreal Tournament does sci-fi carnage. The artwork type used to adapt the martial arts of Sifu is extra stylized and cartoonish than the realism favored by the episodes that observe. But it’s not lengthy earlier than the monotony kicks in. The variety you are feeling once you’re watching too many online game trailers and noticing all of the frequent threads, dreading the inevitable subsequent look of a crafting menu, a ability tree, or a floating companion character.
An excellent half of the shorts within the newest undertaking from Love, Death and Robots creator and Deadpool director Tim Miller embody a montage of characters dying. A full fourth of them characteristic some cheeky nod to a online game protagonist’s life cycle of repetition and/or resurrection. They’re virtually all centered on motion, going for lifelike animation, and reaching for drama that struggles to be fleshed out inside a 5-to-15 minute timeframe. Someone is at all times firing a gun, swinging a sword, or spurting blood.
The life like type isn’t a complete wash. The D&D episode takes benefit of the animated medium by specializing in a shocking range of fantasy races, a stark distinction to the principally human protagonists of Honor Among Thieves and even your uniformly beautiful, runway-ready companions in Baldur’s Gate III. The ultra-grim exaggeration of Warhammer 40,000, too, is pleasingly distinct from Secret Level’s different sci-fi choices, with cumbersome Space Marines staining their armor in luminescent blood whereas they drag a coffin behind them. And the episode for multiplayer shooter Crossfire, if nothing else, affords a change of tempo for that includes a modern-day battle in a collection closely tilted towards far-off futures and fantasy realms.
But on the entire, the extra doubtlessly distinct video games obtain the shortest episodes, some clocking in at underneath 10 minutes. Sifu, Spelunky, and Mega Man at the least feel and appear completely different from the remainder of Secret Level, however they provide solely a short distraction from the collection’ boring affinity for realism and sci-fi firearms. You would possibly, as I did, assume the Pac-Man episode will present some badly wanted selection, however don’t maintain your breath. In the one worst episode of Secret Level, the long-lasting character is crammed right into a maze of generic, gritty, sci-fi journey gore. It’s the one story to wholly reinterpret the supply materials, which the collection may use extra of. But including a sword and a few bloody entrails to dangle from Pac-Man solely makes it really feel like all the pieces else in Secret Level.
At its greatest, Secret Level succinctly conveys the attraction of its characters and the worlds they inhabit. The evil company and oppressed robots within the Unreal Tournament episode might not be notably creative, however they rapidly and cleanly distinguish who we’re imagined to root for. The Outer Worlds fuels one of many few action-free episodes, with the charming story of a scrapper who indicators himself up as a check topic in pursuit of the girlboss he loves. Sure, it options a kind of beforehand talked about demise montages, but it surely’s additionally the one episode anchored by characters who really feel flawed and human relatively than bland capabilities of the plot.
Such small triumphs, although, are few and much between. As I watched one floundering episode after one other, I puzzled if the number of video games was the issue. One have a look at what’s being tailored right here and it’s arduous to not surprise how a lot of Secret Level is supposed to double as a advertising ploy. One episode is ready within the starfaring future world of Exodus, a sport that’s not even out but (although after watching what quantities to an prolonged promo on Prime Video, maybe you’d be thinking about a tie-in novel you should buy from Amazon?). There’s a heavy illustration of live-service video games – amongst them Sony’s ill-fated Concord, which, in a very unlucky flub of cross-media synergy, is now not playable. The finale, which breaks the format to drop a number of PlayStation franchises into an unique setting, feels sufficient like a industrial that it’d as effectively finish with the platform’s brand and signature sign-off voice.
But to Secret Level’s credit score, I didn’t at all times really feel like I used to be being offered one thing. New World is, sure, an Amazon-developed sport that simply noticed its console launch a couple of months in the past, however I don’t have a a lot clearer concept of the way it performs or why I ought to need to play it than I did earlier than. All the episode tells me is that there’s a magical island the place everybody who dies will get resurrected once more on the seaside, and from that time we watch the comedic misfortune of a blowhard noble voiced by Arnold Schwarzenegger. These do appear to be earnest makes an attempt to inform “actual” tales inside every sport’s world, even once they don’t play to a franchise’s strengths: The Armored Core episode has extra to do with a CGI Keanu Reeves in a cockpit than the granular mech customization that’s the cornerstone of the collection.
The bigger downside is that many of the tales aren’t superb, to the purpose that the very concept behind Secret Level begins to really feel defective. Putting so many recognizable manufacturers entrance and heart restricts an already restrictive setup. Not solely should Miller and firm overcome the same old anthology-TV wrestle to inform a satisfying, self-contained story, however they have to accomplish that in settings which are extra usually constructed to serve sport mechanics than environment friendly, unique storytelling (to say nothing of doing so by way of animation). The philosophical Honor of Kings episode, for instance, has a good script, but it surely’s stuffed with distracting fantasy prospers that I can solely assume are references to the sport’s setting; the Sifu episode spends most of its time establishing the premise of Sifu. Others by no means shake off their spinoff roots: The Concord episode largely apes Guardians of the Galaxy, but it surely’s a significantly better imitation than the try to copy Interstellar’s emotional core inside Exodus.
A online game anthology collection isn’t doomed to fail. The acclaimed diversifications of Fallout and The Last of Us clearly present that video games can translate into tales that resonate past their unique audiences. But to create a profitable anthology alongside these strains would require extra assured storytelling and a extra assorted, even handed choice than the one on show for Secret Level.
