This Epic 10/10 Prime Video Series Is the Best Binge for Sci-Fi and Fantasy Fans

Animated anthology series are becoming more commonplace as studios embrace not just animation, but its full range of styles, from mature tales like Love, Death + Robots to family-friendly pieces in Star Wars: Visions. The ability to use different animation allows for a breadth of storytelling that attracts diverse audiences and promotes a range of artists.

In that vein of thinking, Prime Video has struck gold by going back to the creator of Love, Death + Robots, Tim Miller, and allowing him to take this approach to video game adaptations with Secret Level. This anthology series is a dream for any fantasy or sci-fi fan, as the way it adapts games leans into high-concept genres while not requiring the viewer to have in-depth knowledge of every game it uses.

Prime Video's 'Secret Level' Creatively Adapts Different Video Games

Secret Level's central premise is that each episode adapts a different video game into a 15-20-minute story set inside that world. Often, with these kinds of adaptations, the pressure is on the studio to correctly capture the essence of the game while still adding its own creative flair. Part of Secret Level's genius is that it manages to do so without bogging down the viewer in the lore of each game. For the opening episode, "Dungeons & Dragons: The Queen's Cradle," there is no need to understand the in-game role-playing mechanics of Dungeons & Dragons, yet the tale does focus on a group of diverse heroes coming together to achieve a task, similar to how the game centers around individual players using unique skills to work together.

Secret Level's sixth episode, "PAC-MAN: Circle," is perhaps the show's most creative adaptation, as it re-imagines the world of PAC-MAN through a horror lens based on the ideas of a maze, ghosts, repetition, and consumption. Once again, there is no need to understand how to play PAC-MAN on an arcade machine, or even have any prior knowledge of the game's existence, meaning Secret Level is both open to video game novices and aficionados alike.

'Secret Level' Embraces the High Concept Nature of Sci-Fi and Fantasy

What people typically love about video games is not just the mechanics that allow the player to feel like they are truly achieving something, but the immersive worlds they are dropped into. They are often (but not always) unrecognizable from our own reality, providing a sense of escapism, and Secret Level embraces this creativity wholeheartedly, using the video games to tell classic tales within the sci-fi and fantasy genres. In the fourth episode, "Unreal Tournament: Xan," a seemingly classic man-versus-machine robot uprising quickly turns into a tale where viewers support a robot's right to freedom, using sci-fi to critique real-world worker exploitation, as the robots are abused miners.

In the D&D episode, as well as the episode "New World: The Once and Future King," these fantastical realities are colorful and expansive, full of unexplained yet accepted clans, immortal islands, and enemies. This creates space to explore how protagonists like Aelstrom (Arnold Schwarzenegger) or Solon (Noah Manzoor) can transform their lives in a myriad of ways, with the help of unlimited trial-and-error or a dragon. Yet, Secret Level can also explore dystopian worlds that reveal the dark side of sci-fi, as "Warhammer 40,000: And They Shall Know No Fear," and "Armored Core: Asset Management," depict dystopian futures that show how evolving warfare can erode our humanity.

'Secret Level's Animation Styles Reflect the Video Game It is Adapting

Like Love, Death + Robots and Visions, Secret Level uses a different animation style in each episode. However, the attention to detail is taken a step further, as each style reflects the tone and intention of the video game it is adapting. Episodes such as D&D's use motion capture so that the audience relates to the characters on a human level, as you would in roleplaying. In contrast, "Sifu: It Takes a Life," makes use of a style closer to anime, which lets the action-heavy episode flow with a pace that makes the choreography feel smooth and dynamic, whereas PAC-MAN's episode includes textured lines in the artwork, reflecting the arcade-style screen the game would typically be played on, making the world feel more tangible yet also retro.

With 15 episodes available and a second season currently in development, Secret Level is the perfect binge for not just video game fans, but those who enjoy what the genres of sci-fi and fantasy have to offer. At no point does the show overwhelm the viewer through heavy exposition or explaining how the game works. It instead relies on world-building through animation style and the plot itself, immersing the viewer in a unique and tantalizing experience that will make you desperate for more episodes.