How Secret Level can complement the stories of games like New World

When Blur Studio first unveiled its upcoming animated series, Secret Level, it looked to be a celebration of beloved properties from across gaming. Excited fans were spotting some of their favorite characters like Pac-Man and Mega Man. There were also some games that, no offense meant to their creators, generated a little less excitement.

It was hard at the time to expect anybody to get excited for a short based on Amazon Games' New World Aeternum. Its predecessor didn't find much of an audience to the point that Aeternum became necessary. However, after taking a trip to Amazon Studios to check out the New World Aeternum episode of Secret Level, I walked away with an appreciation for everything that Blur Studio can potentially create. That means making compelling and heartfelt stories in gaming worlds that some people may not necessarily expect to find them. Yes, that includes New World Aeternum.

What Blur Studio does with the New World Aeternum episode of Secret Level is less about working with the game's established characters and instead building that game's world and conveying its core concept. This is a world about landing on a mysterious island, one that been perpetually stuck in the 16th century, where its denizens are not allowed to age or die. Without spoiling the main plot or how it unfolds, Blur takes this idea and runs with it, toying with the idea of being on a dangerous island, dying repeatedly, and respawning no worse for the wear. In doing so, Blur crafts a tale with raucous humor and a surprising amount of heart.

"It's also important to push it a little bit, to stretch it a little bit farther than you saw before so you're not just seeing a rehash of what's in the game: you're actually experiencing some new elements of the IP that you haven't seen anywhere else," New World: Aeternum narrative director Rob Chestney told Amazon Games. "I've worked with Blur before, and the secret is to give them the idea, give them the world, give them the concept of what the game is and then let them go and come up with something awesome and creative. They're probably going to come up with something that's so ambitious and mad that they could hardly even pull it off. But that's what makes them awesome: that they then stretch themselves to create something that just blows everybody away. We got this pitch and it was a slam dunk."

It's the kind of approach that Blur hopes to take with every Secret Level episode, taking an IP, examining the world that the team is working with, and creating a tale that may not always be what's expected, but will resonate with fans nonetheless. In the case of New World Aeternum, it might even generate interest and court new fans.

"The real strength of this show, I believe, is that it's 15 different games with 11 different developers/publishers," Blur Studio co-founder Tim Miller said during Friday's closed press screening. "[It's] the fact that everybody is together in this and everyone will benefit. You may not play Spelunky. You may play New World, but hopefully you'll stick around to see the Spelunky episode and hopefully it's a tide that brings new fans to every partner of the show."

There are still roughly two months left before Secret Level finds its way to Prime Video. At that point, New World Aeternum players will get a chance to meet what's certain to be one of the anthology's breakout characters. Viewers can find out what makes this character so memorable when Secret Level premieres on Tuesday, December 10. At that point, everyone can see for themselves that Secret Level can be something special, creating new stories, introducing exciting characters, and generally making any game's world one that fans old and new will want to explore further. As for New World Aeternum, that game is hours from release. It'll be out on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S this Tuesday, October 15. In the meantime, be sure to check out our recent preview.

This preview is based on an advance screening on the Amazon Studios lot.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?