The creators of Secret Level shared that they had an idea for a crossover episode with Master Chief and Doom Slayer, but Xbox decided not to go for it.
Season 1 has 15 episodes, each inspired by a different video game. Some of the choices are pretty surprising for an animated show. There’s an episode about Pac-Man, one about Unreal Tournament, and even one based on Sifu.
In an interview with Collider, creators Tim Miller and Dave Wilson talked about the feedback on Amazon’s anthology series. They mentioned that some fans had criticized the choice of video games featured in the episodes. Miller shared his frustration about online comments, saying,
It annoys me when I see people saying things like, ‘Why did they choose Spelunky instead of Halo?’ I just think, ‘Do you really believe we didn’t try to talk to the Halo team?’
Wilson shared that he and Miller were excited about the idea of making a crossover episode with Master Chief and Doom Slayer. They even pitched the idea to Microsoft and Doom’s developer, ID Software, but it didn’t work out.
The creative director at ID Software is a close friend of ours, and we also know people at Microsoft, We made a big effort to pitch the idea because Tim and I love creating things you can’t find in the games, like crossovers.
Wilson explained
We really wanted to create a Master Chief and Doom Slayer crossover episode, I spent an entire weekend writing this heartfelt letter about how much these characters meant to me growing up. But, just like Tim said, they turned us down with a ‘Nah.’
Wilson said
Miller added that the two of them also “begged” to do an episode about Half-Life, but that idea also didn’t go anywhere. Miller explained that the Secret Level creators did their best given the challenges they faced and the process of getting permission to use video game franchises for the show.
We couldn’t just pick anything we wanted, and not all the games were available, We could make 10 seasons of this and still have plenty of games we love.
he said
With Secret Level Season 2 confirmed, Miller and Wilson will get another chance to turn more video games into episodes. Although there’s no set release date yet, Miller hopes to release episodes yearly. However, he said,
That’s a big commitment and requires a lot of trust.
Creating the show would likely need a lot of people. In the same interview, Miller shared that a huge team of 2,500 artists from 20 countries worked on Secret Level over the four years it took to go from the idea to the finished product.