Gory horror Pac-Man. A story of a life in Exodus. A gladiator-esque showdown in Unreal Tournament. Kratos, Jin Sakai, the Helldivers, and more in a PlayStation collision course. Oh, and Keanu Reeves — did we mention Keanu Reeves?
All of that and more is packed into 15 short episodes of Secret Level Season 1, a video game adaptation anthology from creator Tim Miller and executive producer/supervising director Dave Wilson that premieres on Prime Video on December 10. Among the other games it covers are The Outer Worlds, Sifu, Warhammer 40K, Spelunky, Mega Man, Dungeons & Dragons, and the now-shuttered Concord, ranging in genres from comedy to adventure to straight-up horror.
It’s quite the undertaking, but luckily, Miller and Wilson have worked on a similar collection of stories before with animated Netflix anthology Love, Death, and Robots. But this project is a bit different — as the duo points out in the below Q&A, they were dealing within established universes with game publishers that have the potential to be protective over their IP (except, apparently, for Bandai Namco, who was down for some pretty weird stuff with Pac-Man).
IGN recently sat down with Wilson and Miller for just under 10 minutes, but we covered a surprising amount of ground about how this collection of video game shorts came to life. The filmmakers discuss how they managed to avoid “risk-averse behavior” in favor of “risk-forward” behavior, what they could do with future seasons, the episode they can’t believe they got to do, and why they hope that Kratos cameo isn’t too disappointing for God of War fans.
(Warning: The below contains some plot details for a few episodes, but no outright spoilers).
I think what kind of makes it such a ride is this really diverse list of games. You have upcoming games like Exodus, and then you have games that don’t exist anymore like Unreal Tournament and Concord. I’m sure there’s a long answer to this, but how did this really diverse list of games come together for you guys?
Dave Wilson: You want the short answer to the complicated process?
Yes, give me the one-tenth answer of how this came about. Basically, did it start with you guys kind of making a wish list and then seeing what you could get?
Wilson: Yeah, very much so, but it is complicated. We’re certainly not the first folks to come up with like, “Hey, wouldn’t it be a great idea to adapt a video game or two?” So obviously some of them are tied up and it’s a very different show. So it is a complicated process of making sure there’s something for everyone, whether that’s indie and nostalgia games to triple-A blockbusters that haven’t come out yet.
Tim Miller: Through genres like sci-fi or fantasy or horror to, “Let’s do it together.”
Wilson: So we try and pick something to cover. I mean, there isn’t a bigger sort of entertainment clubhouse on planet Earth [than video games], right? So how do you pick 15 games to represent everybody? It’s almost an impossible task unless we have multiple, multiple seasons.
Miller: Yeah. I mean, there’s games where you can just wander around and look at the beautiful world or puzzle games, and then there’s games where you kill as many people as you can. So it’s a pretty broad spectrum, and we’re trying to get something for everybody. Obviously we’re going to fail, but we did the best we could.
Now I’m sure the answer to this one is like, “We can’t tell you about our negotiations,” but were there any pie-in-the-sky games or properties that you just couldn’t get for this batch of episodes?
Miller: Yeah, for sure. And you can imagine the reasons why. It’s because either they didn’t have a game coming out so they weren’t ready to market it, or it had already been set up to be a movie or a television series to any of 100 different reasons. And the games that are there are a combination of yes, games we chose, but also people that had worked with us often in the past. Not everybody, but a lot making trailers and video game commercials because they trusted us. And this is a very different new sort of format with all these people from different publishers and different game creation companies, and they’re all going to be part of this one show. It’s a weird thing when you stop and think about it, but also it’s kind of obvious.
Wilson: It’s also even weirder, and I think this is why it’s tricky, is because it is new and there’s nothing else like it out there. But also in the sort of very forward-thinking way that Amazon and Tim went about setting it up is everything still belongs to the developers and publishers. And I think that’s an unusual way to think about adapting some of these IPs. The traditional approach is like, “We buy it. We own it,” and we didn’t want to approach it that way.
Miller: For big corporation not to do a land grab was uniquely forward-thinking.
Well, and that’s something I actually specifically wanted to ask about. I think about the Pac-Man episode, which is to put it very mildly, a big swing with that IP. Were there any episodes where you went to the publishers and they kind of responded with like, “You’re going to do what to our characters?”
Wilson: That episode is more them (Bandai Namco) than us.
Really?
Miller: Yeah, it was more like us going, “You want us to do what to the character?”
Wilson: It all started with us asking, “What are you hoping an episode would be?” And in some cases, like Warhammer for example, they knew they wanted to focus it around the Ultramarines. So there were definitely sort of guardrails put on some of the episodes in terms of, how would you even pick what chapter to begin with on Warhammer?
So we definitely did work with the game developers on that. But I mean, where we were given the opportunity to take some wild swings, like you say, we took them. You don’t get those opportunities a lot. And to get in the biggest stadium there is and to sort of bunt would be a travesty.
Miller: At first, we practiced active listening.
Wilson: But yeah, I think that the great thing about this is typically video game adaptations are in the hundreds of millions of dollars and with that comes some constraints, let’s say.
Miller: Risk-averse behavior.
Wilson: Yeah, and I think we got to take some wild swings –
Miller: Risk-forward behavior.
Wilson: Yes, right. Which is exciting. It doesn’t happen every day.
Miller: “Step off that f*cking cliff, kids. Let’s go.”
Outside of the Pac-Man episode, is there one thing that had you looking at each other like, “I can’t believe we got to do this with this game. This is insane”?
Miller: Have you seen the Warhammer episode?
Yeah.
Miller: And the level of violence?
Oh, my God, yes.
Miller: Yeah. I was disgusted, personally.
Like, “what have we done?”
Wilson: I think there are many steps more to take on Warhammer. Armored Core, I was incredibly grateful that you’ve never seen a pilot, you’ve never even been in the cockpit of a Core. And so we were given a lot of freedom there. That was essentially Bandai saying, “You can either tell stories in our lore over here, or you can pick door number two and kind of do what you want.”
And so we picked door number two, and obviously within the realm of make sure it’s befitting of the game and the mechs move the way they’re meant to move and that sort of thing. But yes, I think where we were given the opportunity, we took big swings. But we don’t want fans of the IP to watch it and go like, “Wait, this is not what I remember it being.”
The last episode that I watched is the PlayStation one, or the big hodgepodge of PlayStation IP. What was that like working with Sony and taking really iconic characters like Kratos and Jin and the Helldivers? What was it like picking the characters for that episode and then adapting them for it?
Miller: We worked directly with the PlayStation central instead of going to a developer and saying, “Can you give it to us this way?” And it was their idea to do something that was more of a brand exploration. And then Dave and JT [Petty, executive producer and writer] came up with a story that really leans into the way PlayStation has always marketed itself as this, it’s a cool kids club. You didn’t know it, but there really is a cool kids club if you’re a gamer. And they made it this inclusive sort of a spirit.
And so it became about the games that trap and addict you versus the games that expand your world. And that’s what we felt PlayStation always did, and that was what we tried to explore in that short. And we’re always happy too when we get to do something different. And it was different. It’s the only brand spot in the whole piece, and instead of just one IP, we get to play with a lot. I do hope nobody feels sad that it’s not a giant God of War Kratos piece or it’s not a Ghost of Tsushima piece, or it’s not just the Helldivers piece. We could still do all those!
Wilson: Kratos was in the trailer for two or three frames. Never have two or three frames been more debated because nobody wants to misrepresent what the episode is, right? And so yes, it was a hotly debated topic.
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she’s not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
