The era of video games crossing over with our other entertainment is here. Prime Video’s new series Secret Level takes on 15 different video game properties or worlds across it’s first season. It features an all-star cast of voice actors including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Keanu Reeves, Kevin Hart, Laura Bailey, Gabriel Luna, Ariana Greenblatt, Emily Swallow, and Claudia Doumit among plenty of other talents.

Each episode focuses on a different video game world between 9 and 17 minutes. Some of them focus strictly on the lore and story of their universe and others take interesting turns into what you might think you know about a universe. The 15 games and series featured are: Armored Core, Concord (RIP), Crossfire, Dungeons & Dragons, Exodus, Honor of Kings, Mega Man, New World, Pac-Man, PlayStation, Sifu, Spelunky, The Outer Worlds, Unreal Tournament, and Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2.

Looking at that list of games and series, it’s easy to see which ones stand out, and there might also be some that you’ve never heard of. The main issue with Secret Level arises if you don’t know or care too much about the lore of a certain game. For some of the episodes, I didn’t have any real connection to something like Exodus or Concord, so while those episodes did surprise me with their narratives, it likely would have been better, had there been a prior connection.

Absolutely Beautiful Across The Board

The best thing about Secret Level is that they wove an art style throughout the series, but it still captures the essence of each series visually. What exactly does that mean? So the series has a CGI art style but for each game that they’re adapting, you still can look at it and see that it’s Mega Man or Warhammer. In particular, the Warhammer episode stands out as a success story. It combines the brutal aesthetic of that series but distills it down to a mere 15 minutes for anyone who doesn’t know a thing about it.

That might have been a critique of mine for the series above, but it’s also a point where the series succeeds. At this point, if someone doesn’t know what Pac-Man is, they’ve actually been under a rock. The Pac-Man episode is absolutely wild and takes it so far beyond the point of what you’d guess about a 12-minute episode of this show would be.

Depending on what you know about the series or game, your mileage may vary. On the surface, Secret Level is an absolutely beautiful look into the world of various video games. If you can look deeper or have a deeper appreciation for the source material, it’s a smashing series. Who knows, it might make you a fan of something you’ve never heard of. Either way, it’s worth a watch for fans of video games.

Secret Level releases on Prime Video on December 10th and has two new episodes every week.

So, are you excited for Secret Level, let us know in the comments!

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