Secret Level TV Show Review — All about Videogames, But With Problems

Secret Level — a new anthology of short films and the main successor to Love, Death & Robots. However, this time the main theme is video games, and the production was handled by Amazon, though still with Tim Miller. The project includes as many as 15 episodes, but critics did not like it. We decided to delve into the topic ourselves and watched all the episodes, and now we will explain why the secret level turned out not to be so secret.

For convenience, we will briefly go through each episode. They are all dedicated to different games and have nothing in common with each other, so they should be evaluated as separate works. However, this will not prevent us from making a general conclusion at the end, but more on that later.

The first episode starts strong with Dungeons & Dragons. It's not a video game per se, but it laid the foundation for many iconic RPG series, such as Baldur's Gate, so its presence in the anthology is understandable. Unfortunately, we are not given any introductions or even the slightest exposition.

A group of heroes rescues a boy who constantly hears strange voices in his head. It's not hard to guess that the end of this story is tragic. DnD lore experts will be pleased with the appearance of perhaps the most famous dragon goddess, Tiamat, while others will be left rather puzzled. The plot doesn't have a proper ending. The story cuts off at the most interesting point and doesn't show what you expect from it. This is a common problem for almost all episodes of the anthology, but it feels particularly acute here.

There are two important positives worth highlighting. The first is, of course, the graphics. Stylistically, the cartoon resembles clips from Diablo 4 or the latest World of Warcraft add-ons. It's a good style for dark fantasy, where muted colors are actively used, and the monsters, even skeletons, look quite menacing. The second positive is the attention to D&D rules. All spells and strikes work as described in the tabletop game, but those details will go unnoticed by those unfamiliar with the context. In the end, there's a bitter aftertaste of incompleteness. Such a cartoon would benefit from being an hour and a half to two hours long, rather than just 20 minutes.

We once did a review of Sifu, and it's truly a very special game. Firstly, it's entirely focused on martial arts, and secondly, it turned out to be so challenging that the developers had to release a patch with more forgiving settings. And thirdly, it has one important feature that immediately sets Sifu apart from other similar games. The main character possesses a special amulet, each coin on which represents several years of life. The more coins you spend due to fatal injuries, the older the character becomes. When the amulet is empty, the whole game starts over. The concept wasn't explained in detail; instead, the general rules were outlined, leaving gamers to figure them out on their own. This is why we hoped that the short episode of Secret Level would reveal a bit more, but alas.

The entire episode of Sifu: It Takes a Life is a loose repetition of the game's second level with zero additional lore details. Yes, the fights are just as brutal and spectacular, and the amulet feature is replicated precisely, even allowing the main character to age completely, but what's the point if we've already seen all this in the game? Was it worth spending time, resources, and money to literally create an extended trailer for a project that was released long ago?

The episode looks exactly like the game itself. Credit must be given to the creators; they replicated the atmosphere and unique visual style precisely, but it doesn't change the feeling of pointlessness.

The first great story in the anthology, featuring not only a complete plot but also interesting world-building. New World is not the most successful MMO game, into which a ton of money was invested, yet the final result disappointed almost everyone. Nevertheless, as a cartoon, the concept of a world where no one can die forever is pleasantly surprising.

The main character is a spoiled king accustomed to getting everything handed to him. However, in a world where strength doesn't matter, he has to come to terms with entirely different rules. Ultimately, the character undergoes a full circle of development, finds friends, and radically changes his life course.

Pleasant graphics and an excellent main idea come as a package. The Once and Future King is a positive example of how to work with short films without sacrificing meaning. By the way, Arnold Schwarzenegger himself participated in the voice acting.

Another successful episode in the Secret Level collection. We get to know the world of Unreal Tournament from a completely unusual perspective. Robots in this universe are slaves performing the dirtiest jobs. By a random twist of fate, one such droid gains self-awareness and the ability to learn, subsequently making others his followers. Due to regular acts of disobedience, the robots are sent to the tournament as cannon fodder, but they unexpectedly put up serious resistance.

The story, like in The Once and Future King, has a clear beginning, middle, and end. All the main elements of the game are present, and you start to care about the fate of the robots. However, watching this for too long might not be as interesting. All the droids remain machines, albeit much smarter ones. So Xan is a rare case where a short film is actually a good thing. However, we would definitely like to see a series telling about the world as a whole.

Warhammer 40,000 is quite popular lately. After the incredible success of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, it was expected that this universe would appear in some form in such an anthology. Among the heroes, there's even the old acquaintance Titus, although the story is mainly not about him.

In this case, everything follows the standard scheme — massive, brutal, and very cool. A squad of Ultramarines clears a planet and fights the forces of chaos. This is how any short film in the universe looks. It's worth highlighting the sense of scale and volume. In And They Shall Know No Fear, it especially feels like the Space Marines are not ordinary people. They are much taller and more powerful than standard soldiers, and their armor allows them to simply ignore many damages. Overall, the episode definitely succeeded, and we want to see more.

The first unusual story on our list approaches the original game creatively. We all know what Pac-Man looks like, but in this version, the creators invite us to imagine. What if we entertain the thought that the circle with jaws is the villain?

It turned out extremely impressive. This is the only truly original adaptation among all 15 episodes, so it deserves praise for that alone. Visually, the episode also proved to be unique. Slightly sharp lines give the environment an aggressiveness and painful malice. This perfectly harmonizes with the main idea, and after watching, you'll understand why.

Perhaps one of the dullest episodes in the entire anthology. Moreover, the choice of game seems questionable. There's nothing particularly interesting to come up with in the world of Crossfire. We are shown two groups of mercenaries, each confident in their own righteousness. Their confrontation ends exactly as you would expect.

The idea that each side of a conflict has its own truth is not new to games, but it could have been portrayed more interestingly through many other projects. Here, ordinary military personnel simply sabotage each other, nothing more. The super-realistic graphics allow you to recognize some famous actors, such as The Boys star Claudia Doumit and American Gods actor Ricky Whittle.

At the time of the announcement, the fleeting appearance of Keanu Reeves' face in the trailer caused quite a stir. However, for some reason, we didn't see a series with Cyberpunk 2077. Instead, there was Armored Core. This episode seems to have collected all the stereotypes long associated with Reeves — electronic cables plugged directly into the body, a rough main character in a dystopian future, and flirtations with artificial intelligence. All of this is present.

Overall, it was amusing to watch the colorful battles of big robots, but the plot once again stumbled over the runtime. The philosophical undertones fail to deliver, and the story is poorly developed. We know nothing about Reeves' character, his relationship with the AI of the suit, or why he is so special. There's simply too little information. In the end, it's very beautiful, but once again, a missed potential.

Once again, a great story that definitely feels cramped in a short runtime. The original The Outer Worlds was a nuclear cocktail of borderline humor and serious themes, like the egregious abuse of power by numerous space corporations.

The series tries to replicate this experience but ends up focusing more on the latter than the former. A scavenger boy falls in love with a scientist girl. To see her again, he makes numerous sacrifices, but she is only interested in her own success. Is there a moral here? In the end, the boy is left with nothing and looks less like an idealist and more like a fool, leaving mixed feelings about the finale. The realistic CGI looks magnificent, but overall, the episode once again has much more potential than what we ultimately saw. And the reckless spirit of The Outer Worlds is clearly lacking in the series.

One of the most unsuccessful episodes alongside Crossfire: Good Conflict, but for different reasons.

The episode itself provides no information about the hero and is several times shorter than the others. A strange choice by the creators, which leaves nothing to say. A robot boy fights against other robots — that's all. Perhaps there are unique features in this world, but they weren't shown in the episode. A questionable choice of game if you really want to reach as broad an audience as possible.

This series deserves praise. Another example of why the writers earn their keep. Besides incredibly beautiful graphics, there are several other features. First and foremost, it's important to know that Exodus is a yet-to-be-released game. We are literally getting to know this world for the first time, aside from promotional trailers. The second feature is a more realistic approach to space travel. Remember that planet from Interstellar where 1 minute equals a year as we know it? Exodus has a similar system. In terms of gameplay mechanics, this should lead to all gamer decisions affecting the characters over years.

In the episode, the daughter of a space technician runs away with a charming guy, and the father sets out to find her. What would take less than a day in traditional sci-fi stretches into a lifetime here. The father eventually finds and even saves his daughter, but they are now roughly the same age. An impressive concept that is very cleverly executed.

A decent episode in a fully cartoon style, but with an extremely odd choice of game. Spelunky is a small indie project where you need to run through procedurally generated dungeons and overcome various traps. Despite high ratings, the game is not exactly well-known.

The episode itself tells the story of a girl (the heroine of the game's second part) who tries to find the strength to continue her runs through the ever-changing caves. Overall, nothing special and perfectly fits the short film format.

It seems that Tim Miller himself expressed that he genuinely doesn't understand why such an amazing and high-quality game like Concord failed. Well, after a whole series about this universe, we found another answer. In the episode, a team of space pirates or smugglers saves their captain, who has a flash drive with a map of all safe routes through space hidden in her hand. All would be fine, but even in the short film, the creators couldn't resist a ton of heavy-handed messaging, which literally seeps from every frame.

No need to delve deep. From the first minutes, you immediately notice that our captain is a black woman, and her entire crew consists of anyone but white people. Meanwhile, the only white blond man is, of course, a cowardly traitor. If you look a little closer, you can see unshaven armpits, colorful inappropriate inserts, and much more. And all this, I remind you, in 20 minutes of runtime. Alas, Concord is hopeless, as amidst the abundance of various statements and visual slogans, there's nothing particularly original.

Another questionable game on the list. Honor of Kings, also known as King of Glory, is a B-grade MOBA game, far from the popularity of Dota 2 or League of Legends. However, the episode is not directly related to the game, except for the lore. We are told about a living, moving city where all processes are controlled by a powerful artificial intelligence. If you can beat it in a board game, you can gain power and control, but no one has managed to do so yet.

Naturally, the young genius defeats the machine, but in the end, it turns out that this was also calculated. As a short anime, the episode looks quite decent. Knowing about the game is not necessary at all. Everything is drawn well and with soul, so there's no desire to nitpick. However, the question of why this exists within the framework of Secret Level remains hanging in the air.

The final episode and the main trick of the creators, as most of the footage for the trailers was taken from it. This is a big problem that deserves a closer look. In the story, we meet a delivery girl whose job has turned into a game due to the rules of a helper robot. As a reward, she receives meaningless color schemes for her bike and nothing more. Everything changes when a stranger asks her to deliver a strange creature. Not only does this immediately irritate the robot, but the creature also gives the girl incredible power. In the end, the heroine reaches her home and transitions to a world where all fantasies are real.

Sounds like nonsense, we agree, but in fact, the plot is not meant to be understandable and logical. The main thing here is another statement. In this simple way, the creators try to draw viewers' attention to the fact that games have long turned from true art into a routine resembling a boring job where skins are given as rewards. Overall, the idea is good, but the execution is again questionable.

In the end, the heroine, of course, returns to the hits where imagination is not constrained, but the contrast turned out to be mediocre. As "landmarks," Shadow of the Colossus, unexpectedly, Helldivers 2, God of War: Ragnarok, Ghost of Tsushima, and several others are used. But all these games became commercially successful not just by chance. They also implemented many smart managerial decisions, not much different from robots with skins. All these games flash for a split second and seem redundant, and more often even alien in the episode.

And here you realize that the creators simply assembled more or less popular hits to just cut trailers from them. There is no deep idea behind this episode. Only a robotic desire to hype on someone else's success. People expected some interesting solutions, episodes about the God of War or Jin Sakai, but got a kaleidoscope of little-known or simply not very popular projects, overshadowed by Concord.

Having discussed all the episodes separately, I want to say a few words at the end. We understand why Secret Level cannot boast high ratings. Love. Death. Robots was conceived as a challenge, primarily for artists. No one expected any serious semantic load or long plot from the short films. It was just a pleasant spectacle that amazed with the variety of artistic styles and forms.

Secret Level is about something else. Most of the episodes here are more or less in one style and are assembled on a computer. The anthology was supposed to show something that we didn't notice in popular games, the very "secret level." It's hard to say what it could have been, but certainly not what turned out in the end. Moreover, gamers were waiting for hits, as Kratos, Ghost of Tsushima, and many other famous characters flashed in the trailers. But we got a list of projects from which it's hard to gather one or two popular ones. Who needs to see Keanu Reeves as an unknown robot pilot when there's Johnny Silverhand? There are, of course, cool episodes, but there are so few of them that it becomes somewhat awkward.

***

In the end, Secret Level turned out to be a passing pseudo-series about not the most popular games. The anthology cannot offer anything outstanding. Watch a few episodes that we noted: New World: The Once and Future King, Unreal Tournament: Xan, Warhammer 40,000: And They Shall Know No Fear, PAC-MAN: Circle, and Exodus: Odyssey. Skip the rest — you won't miss anything.