It’s wild how quickly video game adaptations seemingly went from the lowest form of entertainment to a gargantuan industry full of promise. In one moment, there were countless Resident Evil movies and the work of Uwe Boll, and in the next, The Super Mario Bros. Movie became the biggest film of 2023, while The Last of Us, The Witcher, and Fallout are all Emmy-winning shows. Sure, we still get the occasional Borderlands or Five Nights at Freddy’s, but the times, they certainly are a-changin’.

Yet despite the video game adaptation’s rise in popularity and quality, there are so many untapped franchises, and so many virtual worlds that have yet to make this leap into another medium. Which is sort of the brilliance of Prime Video’s Secret Level, an animated anthology series (created by Tim Miller, who also made Netflix’s anthology, Love, Death & Robots) where each episode adapts a new video game series, which also feels like a way for these game studios to test out the viability of their properties without spending millions of dollars to prove themselves right or wrong. Like all anthologies, however, Secret Level has highs and lows. At its best, Secret Level finds fascinating angles to explore within these existing video game worlds. At its worst, these episodes feel like little more than glorified advertisements for why people should play these games.

What Is ‘Secret Level’ About?

Each episode of Secret Level is entirely its own thing, leading to a series where people might want to hop into an installment or two for the games they like and not pay attention to the rest. There are more cartoony episodes about Mega Man or Spelunky that even a younger viewer could enjoy, but there are also brutally violent episodes centered in the worlds of Warhammer 40,000 and Armored Core that some adults might want to shield their eyes from.

Odds are, even the most obsessive gamers will find stories that even they aren’t familiar with. Crossfire and Honor of Kings aren’t nearly as popular in the U.S. as they are around the world, Concord isn’t available to play anymore after being delisted mere weeks after its release, and Exodus is a video game that hasn’t even been released yet. It’s a strange collection of worlds for sure, but the anthology format serves as a good way for fans of these franchises or even newcomers to spend a few minutes with what a screen adaptation might look like.

‘Secret Level’ Is Best When It Presents a Unique Story in This World With Potential
Image via Prime Video

It shouldn’t be a surprise that most of the best episodes are centered around games where you make your own stories anyways, with installments that feel like we’re getting to see a sliver of the kind of narrative these games have to offer. The show’s two best episodes, “New World: The Once and Future King,” and “The Outer Worlds: The Company We Keep,” do just that. In the New World adaptation, we follow King Aelstron (voiced by Arnold Schwarzenegger), who comes to the land of Aeternum and decides to become their new ruler, a goal which is made even more interesting by the fact that he can’t die in this new land. “New World” plays around with the gaminess of the story, poking fun at the ability to respawn and upgrade your character, but does so within a tale that is entertaining, often quite funny, and ends on a surprisingly sweet note.

Similarly, The Outer Worlds episode also creates a fully fleshed-out story with a beautiful arc, which just so happens to take place in a video game. Reminiscent of Spike Jonze’s short I’m Here, the story follows Amos (Brenock O’Connor), a naive boy in a poor mining town who can’t lie. He decides to become a test subject, risking life and limb—literally—to get closer to the friend he has a crush on, Felicity Karo (Raffey Cassidy), who has started to work for the company doing the experiments. It’s a lovely story that unfolds beautifully, again, ending on a beautiful note, and creating a full story in just about 15 minutes. The beauty of episodes like these is how they not only tell self-contained stories within these worlds, but they make the viewer want to play the game afterward.

Some of ‘Secret Level’s Episodes Feel Like Commercials or Games Pushing for Their Own Shows
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Unfortunately, many of Secret Level’s worst episodes are basically advertisements for games, without focusing too much on creating a self-contained narrative. “Honor of Kings: The Way of All Things” is an introduction to a game that just made it to the U.S. a few months ago, while “Crossfire: Good Conflict” attempts to throw viewers into its world as a way to show what the gameplay feels like in this story of two conflicting sides, neither of which believes themselves to be the “bad guys.”

Maybe the most egregious offender in this regard is the final episode, “Playtime: Fulfillment,” which doesn’t focus on any one game, but rather, throws a collection of Sony PlayStation characters into a particularly bland story that preys on nostalgia for days gone by, when games brought joy to those who have become jaded. It so clearly exists as little more than a way to sell the idea of buying a PlayStation, and quite frankly, Sony has had actual commercials with more exciting arcs than this one.

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At times, these stories also feel like they could simply be the intro video to any one of these games. “Concord: Tales of the Implacable” goes for an almost Guardians of the Galaxy-type space heist introduction to characters in a game you can’t even play anymore. “Exodus: Odyssey” does its best to cram as much narrative in to get people excited about their upcoming game, but it’s simply too much plot stuffed into about twelve minutes. It’s not necessarily a bad thing for these episodes to feel like a game intro, as is the case with “Dungeons & Dragons: The Queen’s Cradle,” but it’s all setup for a story that we aren’t going to see.

Which is another odd aspect of Secret Level: each of these episodes seems like it’s selling itself as the next property that could be picked up for a full series. In a way, Secret Level almost feels like a roundabout way for Amazon to bring back its Pilot Season program, in which viewers voted on what TV pilots should be turned into shows and gave the streaming service some of its first major hits, like Transparent and Man in the High Castle. Now, via the company that has brought Fallout to a wider audience, this at times feels almost like these studios pushing the idea that their shows could be the next big thing. “Mega Man: Start” gives The Blue Bomber an origin story of sorts that could easily be the intro to a pilot episode, and “Sifu: It Takes a Life” is so short that it almost exists as a way to give the viewer a taste of what could be.

‘Secret Level’ Is Great When It Embraces the Possibilities of Its Format
Image via Prime Video

Yet it’s also delightful to watch some of these worlds come to life with this level of freedom and see what the capabilities are in another medium. In “Armored Core: Asset Management,” Keanu Reeves stars as an impressive mech driver, with plenty of allusions to The Matrix thrown in, and by focusing on the human aspect of this world in a way that the games don’t, we get some of the more shocking and bizarre moments in this season. Again, this take on Armored Core is a cool idea brought to life that leans more towards the idea of “hey, wouldn’t it be cool to see Keanu Reeves in a mech” than trying to sell itself as a potential series or an ad for the game itself.

But the wildest and best example of embracing the possibilities of what Secret Level can do comes in “PAC-MAN: Circle,” which reimagines the mazes of the iconic Pac-Man video game as a hellscape where one must eat or be eaten, ghosts can be consumed (well, everything but the eyes), and the maze is an inescapable nightmare. No other episode here quite takes such an ambitious leap as this one, taking a character we all know and putting a demented spin on it. It’s absurd in the best way, and a truly disturbing direction you’d never expect to see from Pac-Man. And yet, by taking the opportunity to try something different and recontextualize this beloved video game series, we get one of the most ridiculous episodes of TV to come out this year.

Secret Level is ultimately hit-or-miss, as one would expect from an anthology series, with the best episodes seizing the chance to tell exciting new stories within their worlds rather than trying to sell the audience on their games or the possibility of their own adaptations. The finest installments here just have fun with the few minutes they have, potentially finding new fans in the process. We love these games for their originality and attempts to show us something new, so it makes sense that Secret Level also works best when it embraces that sort of freedom and ambition in its episodes as well.

Secret Level’s first batch of episodes will be released on December 10 on Prime Video, with the second half coming out on December 17.

Secret Level is an interesting concept that works best as an exploration of interesting video game worlds, and less when it’s an ad for those same worlds.ProsA fun, experimental way to tell stories within intriguing game worlds.The best episodes expand these worlds in delightful and often touching ways.That Pac-Man episode must be seen to be believed. ConsToo many episodes feel like companies simply trying to sell their game to a wider audience.What an odd lineup of games that couldn’t be more different.

An anthology series featuring 15 stories, each set within iconic video game worlds, follows unique narratives that delve into a variety of genres. From action-packed adventures to nostalgic reimaginings, the episodes connect through vibrant animation and imaginative storytelling, offering a fresh take on beloved games like Pac-Man, Dungeons & Dragons, and Mega Man.Release Date December 10, 2024 Cast Arnold Schwarzenegger , Patrick Schwarzenegger , Kevin Hart , Laura Bailey , Keanu Reeves , Gabriel Luna , Ariana Greenblatt , Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje , Michael Beach , Emily Swallow , Claudia Doumit Seasons 1 Production Company Blur Studio, Amazon MGM Studios Network Amazon Prime Video Expand

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