Secret Level

''Secret Level'' (stylized as ''SΞCRΞT LΞVΞL'') is an adult animated anthology series created by Tim Miller for Amazon Prime Video. It is produced by his Blur Studio with Amazon MGM Studios. Dave Wilson executive produces and serves as supervising director. It consists of fifteen stories set in the worlds of different video games. The voice cast includes Arnold Schwarzenegger, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Kevin Hart, Laura Bailey, Heaven Hart, Keanu Reeves, Gabriel Luna, Ariana Greenblatt, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Michael Beach, Emily Swallow, and Claudia Doumit.

The series was first revealed at Gamescom on August 20, 2024. Its first eight episodes were released worldwide on December 10, 2024, with the remaining seven episodes released on December 17, 2024. It received mixed reviews from critics. The ''Pac-Man'' episode served as promotion for the upcoming game, '' Shadow Labyrinth''. In December 2024, the series was renewed for a second season.

Premise

The series consists of fifteen animated, standalone short stories based on the following video games and franchises:

Episodes

Production

''Secret Level'' was created by Tim Miller, who executive produces at his company Blur Studio. Blur Studio serves as a production company along with Amazon MGM Studios, who saw the success of Love, Death & Robots on Netflix and so commissioned the same studio behind it to make another similarly structured series for them, but with video game franchises. Dave Wilson serves as executive producer and supervising director. According to Miller and Wilson, the series took three years to create from start to finish.

While ''Secret Level'' was in the works, Sony was pushing their then upcoming video-game '' Concord'' to become a "Star Wars" level multimedia franchise. For that reason, Sony commissioned Blur Studio to produce an episode about ''Concord'' depicting, in part, its ongoing fictional narrative and new characters coming to the game. After production for ''Secret Level'' was completed, but before its official release, Sony released ''Concord'' but pulled the title from the market within two weeks due to unanticipatedly low sales and player count. Miller stated that they did not consider removing the ''Concord'' episode from the series, despite Sony's market retraction of the game upon which it was based. Miller's decision to keep the episode was, in part, to honor the work that had already been put into it and in respect to some of the other episodes' featured games that had yet to be released as this was the case with the Pac-Man episode turning out to be a teaser for Bandai Namco's then upcoming game ''Shadow Labyrinth''.

On December 17, 2024, the series was renewed for a second season.

Promotion

The series was announced during Gamescom on August 20, 2024. A trailer was released at the event, which featured segments from each of the episodes.

The pilot who features in the ''Armored Core'' episode was the subject of media attention and speculation due to his resemblance to actor Keanu Reeves. Though Prime Video declined to disclose casting information at the time of the announcement, '' ComicBook.com'' reported an influx of "nearly nothing but replies about Reeves and his potential appearance in he series under a post by ''Armored Core''s social media account. ''IGN''s Wesley Yin-Poole said that were it not really Reeves, the actor could claim a royalty payment due to the certainty of the character's likeness to his. ''GamesRadar+''s Ali Jones remarked that while the shot could have been "simply be an ethnically ambiguous man with similar facial hair", they noted the likeness, and doubted that ''Armored Core'' would place the image so prominently on their social media account if it were "just some random actor" and not Reeves.

In October 2024 Reeves's casting was officially revealed alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Kevin Hart, Heaven Hart, Gabriel Luna, Ariana Greenblatt, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Michael Beach, Emily Swallow, and Claudia Doumit.

A video game that continues the story of the ''Pac-Man'' episode, titled '' Shadow Labyrinth'', is scheduled for release in 2025.

Release

The series premiered its first part worldwide on December 10, 2024. with a second part releasing on December 17, 2024.

Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, ''Secret Level'' has an approval rating of 69% based on 16 reviews, with an average rating of 6.1/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "''Secret Level'''s melange of video game shorts can't help but feel like a glorified sizzle reel, but these vignettes pack a mean punch in small doses." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 53 out of 100 based on nine critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Steven Nguyen Scaife of ''IGN'' said the show "struggles to find satisfying stories for a short-form anthology" in a 5/10 review and felt dissatisfied by the selection of the source material. Aramide Tinubu of '' Variety'' wrote that "the show acts as poorly written AI summaries of massive tales".

Accolades

References

External links

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2020s American adult animated television series
2020s American animated television series
2020s American anthology television series
American adult animation anthology series
American adult computer-animated television series
American anime-influenced animated television series
American English-language television shows
Amazon Prime Video original programming
Animated series based on video games
Science fiction anthology television series
Television series by Amazon Animation Studios
Television series by Amazon MGM Studios
Television series created by Tim Miller (director)
2024 American television series debuts
Works based on Sony Interactive Entertainment video games
American adult animated drama television series