Two minutes into the fifth episode of Secret levelPrime Video’s anthology series, which tells short stories set in the world of existing gaming properties, appears a splash of text that repeats one of gaming’s most famous mantras: “In the murky darkness of the far future, there is only war.” Warhammer 40KThe iconic introduction of applies to Love, death + robots So does creator Tim Miller’s new animated project – at least if you add “muddy graphics, lazy cynicism and a pathological obsession with violence and repetition” to the pantheon of sins of the future.

To see the vast majority of it Secret levelThe game’s episodes strip the bright, brilliant gaming universe down to its bare essentials, with most of its entries doing little more than translating different flavors of fighting, grunting and badass cartoon villainy into animation studio Blur’s glossy house style known for making video game trailers that look really good pretty much same (good-looking machines, strange shiny people, lots of smoke and fog). There are splashes of color around the edges here – and, God forbid, even a little comedy, including some surprisingly great voice acting from Arnold Schwarzenegger – but for the most part the series borrows from gaming brands, both well known and unknown, and poses portraying them as little more than different types of guys pointing different types of weapons at each other, which is repeated ad infinitum. Despite a few outliers, it’s a shocking (and probably costly) waste of potential.

The episodes vary in length, ranging from seven to seventeen minutes. Secret level is invariably at its best when it’s moving at its fastest, with quick episodes like “Sifu” And “Caving” projecting most of life into the virtual processes. (It doesn’t hurt that these are some of the few episodes that attempt a more distinctive visual flair and aim to recapture at least some of the look of their source material.) For longer episodes, like the ones the episodes focus on Dungeons & Dragons, Armored coreAnd WarhammerThe results are much more mixed: The series gets some The juice from recreating iconic combat concepts in glossy CGI. (That’s the coolest thing Dungeons & Dragons The monk class has always looked on the move, to pick one example out of several. But with so many stories focusing on the same themes of chaos, repetition and redemption, gloss and celebrity cameos can only do so much. (Keanu Reeves, main actor Armored core sequence, is completely wasted in a pseudo-matrix A riff that reveals nothing of the liveliness of his surprisingly good playing Cyberpunk 2077.)

There are undeniably special features here, and not always where you would expect them: If you are not familiar with the Chinese strategy game Honor of kingsYou might be really impressed by the way the short film (directed by Csaba Vicze based on a teleplay by JT Petty) abstracts ideas about leadership and destiny in a visually imaginative way. (Honestly, it also helps that the episodes is not about buff people pointing assault rifles at each other.) The aforementioned Schwarzenegger showcase, adapted from Amazon’s own MMORPG New worldat least has something lively and clever to say about the inevitable repetition of gaming. And you can’t help but feel a little admiration for “Pac-Man: Circle“, an exaggerated example of “What’s the darkest thing we can do without it being obvious?” Pac Man?” At least that seems to be the case knowledge it’s absurd.

But the fact is that writers and directors, when presented with the ultimate toybox to create Secret level have often opted to do little more than smash their action figures together in brutal fashion, and have rarely gone beyond the very first understanding of what a gaming universe could be. (Part of the blame here also lies with the producers for lining up the brands in question, favoring universes that already tend to lean toward weapon-based sludge.) Gaming is huge, huge, fun – anything Secret level at least tried pay lip service with the last episode: “Playtime“, the only episode where there is any apparent interest in commenting on the game itself. However, it’s a shame that this is happening with a glorified Sony commercial voiced by Kevin Hart. (This final episode is where the entrepreneurial synergy of the whole thing is most apparent, but the thought that you’re watching an extremely expensive sponsorship show is never far away.)

Of course, the beauty of an anthology show is that you can take it à la carte, i.e. if you just want to see a CGI Mega Man pose while an orchestral cover of the title screen theme plays Mega Man 2 plays, you’re lucky. (Or if you’re a fan of Sony’s already canceled online shooter Concord and long to see it get one last gasp of the weird “everyone talks too fast” life, well, that’s here too.) Taken on their own, few of these shorts are bad, even if some of them are Are ugly. (The Outer worlds While the episode is one of the best scripts ever, it also puts the greatest focus on human faces – completely to its detriment. Overall, however, they represent an inability to engage with games and see much more than a gloomy, dark present.

Secret level Premiering December 10th on Prime Video