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How Tim Miller Adapted 15 Video Games for Amazon's 'Secret Level' Series
Tim Miller breaks down the writing and development process of the Prime Video video game anthology
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As part of the overall mission to incorporate games old and new, Secret Level initially announced that one of its episodes would revolve around a game that hadn’t even been released when the series was in development. That game is Concord, the live-service multiplayer shooter that Sony launched for PlayStation and PC, before abruptly pulling the plug just two weeks later.
After the recent closure of developers Firewalk Studios, Concord is officially dead. But there was no way for Miller to know what that eventual fate would be during the three years it took to produce Secret Level, nor had it ever been a consideration to remove the episode from the anthology.
Concord was launched and taken offline before its Secret Level episode was even finished. Prime Video
Miller looks back fondly on working with Firewalk on the episode. “There was no nicer, more invested group of developers than the team on Concord,” he says. “I honestly don’t understand why it didn’t work. I know that they were trying to do the best they could, and they were a talented group of artists, so I feel terrible for that.”
It’s a sad truth, but its inclusion in Secret Level may be the last anyone ever sees of Concord, a send-off that Miller hopes is some consolation to its creators. “I don’t feel bad that it’s a part of the show, because I think it’s an episode that turned out really well, and you can kind of see the potential of this world and the characters,” he says. “If it’s the remaining vestige of that product, I hope the developers feel that it’s in some way worthy, just a little bit, of the blood, sweat, and tears they put into it.”
Miller notes the irony publishing the episode of a game that no longer exists but draws a comparison to other games in the series, like Mega Man or Unreal Tournament, which are essentially dead franchises themselves, with no future games on the horizon.
