It’s been a bizarre year for PlayStation. If you follow the industry at all, you know the story of Concord. Sony spent eight years and a massive pile of cash developing a hero shooter that lasted about two weeks on the market. It was a historic flop. But there’s a ghost left in the machine: the Concord Secret Level episode.
Honestly, it’s a bit surreal to watch it now. Secret Level, the anthology series from Blur Studio and Tim Miller (the guy behind Love, Death & Robots), was meant to be a grand celebration of gaming’s biggest icons. Mega Man is there. Kratos shows up. And then, nestled between these giants, is a dedicated episode for a game that literally doesn't exist anymore. It’s like a high-budget tombstone that was carved before the person even died.
People expected Amazon to cut it. How do you market an episode for a dead game? But they didn't. They kept it.
The elephant in the room with the Concord Secret Level episode
Walking into the Concord Secret Level episode, you can’t help but feel a sense of "what if." The animation is gorgeous. Blur Studio doesn't miss. They’ve been the gold standard for cinematic trailers for decades, and here, they breathe a level of life into the Northstar crew that the game itself struggled to convey in its short lifespan.
It focuses on Teo, Cass, and the rest of the ragtag mercenaries. You see the banter. You see the vibrant, 1970s-inspired sci-fi aesthetic that Firewalk Studios was aiming for. It’s colorful. It’s high-fidelity. It makes the world look lived-in and interesting. But there is a crushing irony in watching these characters go on a high-stakes mission when we know their actual mission ended in a server shutdown and mass refunds.
The episode doesn't play like a funeral, though. It plays like a pilot for a show that will never get a full season.
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Why did Sony let this air?
Business-wise, it’s a head-scratcher. Usually, when a product fails this hard, corporations try to scrub it from the Earth. They want you to forget the $200 million loss. They want you to focus on Ghost of Yotei or the next Horizon project.
But animation takes a long time. Years. By the time Concord went offline in September 2024, the Concord Secret Level episode was already "in the can." It was finished. Rendered. Scored. Paid for. Deleting it would have been a slap in the face to the artists at Blur who spent thousands of hours on it. Plus, Tim Miller has been vocal about his support for the developers. He saw the passion they put into it.
There's also the contract factor. Amazon Prime Video paid for an anthology. If Sony pulled the episode, they’d likely be in breach of contract or at least responsible for a massive hole in the production schedule. So, we got it. A glimpse into a universe that was unplugged.
The disconnect between lore and gameplay
One of the biggest criticisms of Concord during its brief launch was that the lore felt disconnected. You had these "Galactic Guide" entries that were walls of text. It was hard to care about a war or a trade route while you were just trying to capture a point on a map.
The Concord Secret Level episode actually solves that. It does more for the characters in 15 minutes than the game did in its entire marketing cycle. You see the stakes. You see why they care about each other. It’s a bitter pill for the former developers at Firewalk to swallow, I'm sure—seeing the best version of their vision realized only after the studio was shut down.
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A different kind of "Secret Level"
The title of the show is Secret Level, but for this specific segment, the title takes on a double meaning. It really is a secret level now. It’s a piece of media that belongs to a phantom franchise.
Most episodes in the series act as "hype" for their respective games. When you see the Warhammer 40,000 episode, you want to go play Space Marine 2. When you see the Sifu episode, you want to go practice your parries. But with the Concord Secret Level episode, there is nowhere to go. There is no store page to visit. You can’t buy the skins. You can’t learn the maps.
It turns the episode into a digital artifact. A "found footage" film from a parallel dimension where hero shooters are still the king of the mountain.
What we can learn from the Northstar crew
If you look past the drama of the game's failure, the episode itself is a masterclass in world-building. Blur Studio uses lighting to tell the story of a galaxy that's both beautiful and incredibly dangerous. The action sequences are fluid—much more fluid than the somewhat "floaty" movement players complained about in the actual game.
- Character Design: You get a closer look at the textures of Star Child’s skin and the mechanical intricacies of the robots.
- Vibe: It leans heavily into that "Guardians of the Galaxy" meets "Star Wars" cantina feel.
- Legacy: It serves as a reminder that hundreds of talented people worked on this. Even if the product-market fit was a disaster, the craft was there.
The Concord Secret Level episode is essentially a museum exhibit. It’s a way to see the art of Concord without the baggage of its $40 price tag or its derivative gameplay loop. It’s pure aesthetic.
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The weirdness of watching a dead game
I’ve talked to a few people who never even played the game but watched the show. Their reaction is usually: "Wait, this looks cool, why can't I play it?" Explaining the "Concord situation" to a casual viewer is a trip. You have to explain the live-service bubble, the saturation of the hero shooter market, and the brutal reality of modern AAA development.
The episode stands as a testament to the volatility of the industry. You can have the best animators in the world, a massive budget, and a prime slot on a streaming service, and it still might not save you if the core game doesn't click with the 15-year-olds playing Fortnite and Valorant.
Is it worth the watch?
Absolutely. Even if you hated the game or never cared about it, the Concord Secret Level episode is a feat of animation. It’s a bittersweet experience. You’re watching the peak of a creative vision that was snuffed out. It’s rare to see something this high-quality that has absolutely no commercial future. No sequels. No DLC. No merchandise. Just the art.
In a way, this episode ensures that Concord won't be entirely forgotten. It won't just be a footnote in a financial report or a "What Happened?" YouTube essay. It has a permanent home on a major streaming platform. It’s a digital ghost that will keep haunting the "Recommended" bar for years to come.
How to approach the Concord Secret Level episode today
If you’re diving into the series, don’t skip this one just because the game is gone. Treat it as a standalone short film.
- Watch for the details: Look at the environmental storytelling that Firewalk was trying to build into the game's maps.
- Separate the art from the business: Ignore the headlines about the $200 million loss and just look at the character work.
- Reflect on the industry: Use it as a case study on how long animation and game dev cycles are, and how they can easily fall out of sync.
- Compare and contrast: See how the tone of this episode differs from the grittier episodes like Armored Core or Warhammer.
The tragedy of Concord is well-documented, but the Concord Secret Level episode allows it to go out with a bit of dignity. It’s a final flare in the sky for a ship that already sank. It's a reminder that behind every "failed" game are thousands of hours of genuine human effort and artistry that deserve to be seen, even if the servers are dark.