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Amazon Prime unveils Secret Level, an animated series focused on several video game franchises. Here’s everything you need to know about this flagship project of the end of the year, including an interview with one of the studios behind the project!
15 Episodes, Multiple Video Game Franchises
Secret Level will feature 15 independent episodes, akin to a series like Love, Death + Robots. The comparison doesn’t end there, as we’ll see later.
These episodes will feature the following IPs: Armored Core, Concord, Crossfire, Dungeons Dragons, Exodus, Honor of Kings, Mega Man, New World: Aeternum, PAC-MAN, Sifu, Spelunky, The Outer Worlds, Unreal Tournament, Warhammer 40,000, and various PlayStation Studios games.
This promises to attract gamers across multiple generations. Especially since the project is helmed by Tim Miller, co-founder of Blur Studio, director of Deadpool, and who was behind the Love, Death + Robots series. The series will be released on December 10 on Amazon Prime.
Tim Miller presented the trailer on stage at Gamescom, with palpable emotion: it’s clear the project is very close to his heart.
Several Studios Involved – and Our Interview!
Much like Love, Death + Robots, the animation work has been split between various studios. Among them are studios that have already worked on this series, such as Platige Image, Unit Image, Goodbye Kansas, Nobody Studio.
We interviewed Léon Bérelle, co-founder and co-director of Unit Image, at the Annecy Festival. He specifically discussed Secret Level, although he couldn’t reveal too much at the time. The article did not provide information about the title or the streaming platform but highlighted the care his team put into the project:
We’re currently working for a platform on an unannounced series. We’ve set the bar very high! We’ve pushed our expertise in facial capture (scan, performance capture) even further. In partnership with our subsidiary company specialized in scanning, Scan Engine, which provides high-end scanning services for video games, fashion, and VFX.
He also discussed the great creative freedom afforded to the studio:
This upcoming series is a cool project because we’re given the script and entrusted with everything else—designs, casting, music, and direction. This grants us great creative freedom and fosters excellent collaboration with the client who trusts us with all these aspects.
He also touched on the economic aspects of such projects and the appeal of animation projects tied to video games:
So, these projects can have larger budgets, leading to more quality and better working conditions to delight fans of the license. There might be a cost-sharing arrangement between the broadcaster or streaming platform and the game publisher, but the ability to produce high-quality film or series is crucial—this is where we come in.
The reason companies come to us for such projects is our speed in producing short formats, our image quality, and our skill in storytelling, given our deep understanding of the video game universe. What publisher wouldn’t want their own Arcane or Mario?
We invite you to read the full interview for more details. Léon Bérelle provides a comprehensive overview of the economic trends in the industry that favor the emergence of such series, talks about managing studio growth, other Unit Image projects (including feature films!), how they perceive the current crisis affecting animation and video games, and their pipeline.
We will publish more articles on Secret Level in the months to come. To stay updated on our upcoming articles, interviews, videos, be sure to follow us on social media: Facebook, X/Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
