Table of Contents
Highlights
- Secret Level’s first season features 15 episodes set in popular gaming universes like Armored Core, God of War, and Pac-Man.
- Episode 5: Warhammer 40K and Episode 7: PAC-MAN: Circle both left fans excited and eager for more.
- Despite intellectual property challenges, the creators remain hopeful for future crossovers, including a possible Halo and Doom team-up.
From the creators of Love, Death & Robots, Tim Miller and Dave Wilson’s Secret Level has been setting the stage on fire with its innovative animated anthology. Created for Amazon Prime Video, the series features various stories set in beloved video game universes.
Diverse Gaming Universes
The first season consisted of 15 stories each featuring a popular gaming universe like Armored Core, God of War, and Pac-Man. Notably, Secret level Episode 5: Warhammer 40K had left people who were fans of Lieutenant Titus and his battle against the forces of Tzeentch clamouring for more. The series ignited excitement within the gaming community who eagerly anticipate what may come next.
Creative Liberty & Audience Reception
The Secret Level team’s creative liberty in creating the episodes has helped garner a big audience, which could especially be seen with Episode 7, PAC-MAN: Circle. While the episode had people leaving with some confusion and awe, it showcased that the team was willing to break the traditional perspectives to create a good story.
Intellectual Property Challenges
Unfortunately, creativity is constrained by limitations imposed by intellectual property rights. The directors of Secret Level revealed that they had this grand idea of doing a crossover between the Halo and Doom Universe. The episode that could be sadly failed to see the light of day as id Software and Microsoft, owners of the two game rights could not see the vision of the directors.
Visionary Crossovers
The directors had believed that the crossover between the Master Chief and the Doom Slayer, two iconic powerhouse guys in power suits and power enough to be called a one-man army. This would have been quite literally every kid’s fantasy and it might have been Miller’s too as he said in an article by Collider:
“We wanted to make a Master Chief/Doom Slayer crossover episode, and I spent a whole weekend crafting this impassioned letter of my childhood.”
Hope for the Future
While this may lead to fans being disappointed, the directors can be seen as rather positive-minded about this topic. A second season of Secret Level has already been confirmed, which means more video game franchises may be included, one of which may be the crossover we are looking for. Perhaps the fans who now know about this potential crossover can influence the two franchise owners to see the benefit in allowing the creators of Secret Level to go forward with the episode too. Until then, it seems that the only place we can ever see a crossover between the two iconic characters would be in Fortnite. Who knows? Maybe the directors can find a loophole this way.
