This review contains moderate structural and thematic spoilers for the 5th episode of Secret Level, “And They Shall Know No Fear”.
With the news that Games Workshop and Amazon have finalised their deal, potentially bringing us the Warhammer Cinematic Universe on a level beyond WarhammerTV’s offerings, there’s likely to be a lot of eyes on this first outing for the collaboration. Has it lived up to the expectations? I’d say so, but there’s a lot to dive into for such a short episode. Let’s get started.
First things first, let’s make it clear that this is a short. It’s using one established character in Lieutenant Titus, from the wildly popular Space Marine 2, but it was never going to have a huge amount of time to create a character-driven story – the whole thing, from the end of the opening logos to the closing credits, is a little over 15 minutes long. So, if you’re expecting a big expansion to the lore of the video games, or even just a deep dive into Titus and what makes him tick, you’re likely going to be disappointed. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. The vast majority of Warhammer media we’ve seen so far has been short-form, and stuff like The Tithes hasn’t been any less of a banger for its length. That said, this isn’t the only thing Secret Level has in common with other offerings.
I can’t honestly review this episode without talking about the elephant in the room, so I’m going to do so early on. If you’ve watched Astartes, you’re going to notice a lot of similarities. There are stylistic parallels aplenty, which are understandable – after all, there are only so many ways you can animate Space Marines, though we’ll get to what Secret Level does differently in a bit – and the structure is almost entirely identical in terms of the basic beats. It’s by no means a shot-for-shot remake, but it’s clearly doing something that enfranchised fans will have seen before, and will know well. I say this not as criticism, rather because I want to be clear on something. I don’t think the similarity is a bad thing.
Astartes was an iconic piece of media for the setting, and picked up a lot of attention – the original was taken down, but the most accessible compilation of them has 22 million views at the time of writing. I honestly went back and checked the credits for this review wondering if Syama Pedersen, the maker of Astartes, would show up in there (it took a few tries, but I found him!), as I know GW noticed all that attention and wanted to get on the bandwagon. 22 million, even accounting for repeat views, is probably bigger than the 40k fan base was back then by a huge margin. Hell, it may well be an order of magnitude. And, while there’s less of a barrier to entry for watching something on YouTube than getting involved in the miniatures game, or even having a Prime subscription, those are the kind of numbers to make corporate leadership sit up and take notice. Â
It makes sense that for such a high profile offering, on one of the biggest networks in the world, they would want to stick to a formula they can be absolutely sure will work. Think of this like a Star Wars: The Force Awakens in miniature, where it isn’t an exact remake, but is retreading the same familiar steps to make sure the community is on board. I get it – really, I do. There are probably some careers riding on this whole deal being a success, and taking a risk with some avant-garde flick about the internal politics of the T’au Empire or something would have been a bit silly. It’s a good decision, and one I don’t think detracts from this episode as a piece of media.
A review that essentially says ‘this is Astartes’ would neither be fair nor accurate, though. Firstly, on a technical level, this episode is remarkably well-executed. The production values are sky-high, with great animation, directing, and pace. It’s making very good use of its limited time to put a core narrative across – these are Space Marines, they live in the Imperium with all that entails, and they fight real good, even when there are scarier things than them out there. I would say it represents a solid improvement on what came before from this angle alone, but there’s more to it.
Unlike Astartes, there’s full voice-acting in this, with Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje getting some lines. I’m surprised we didn’t hear a bit more from him, both because of his character’s relevance to Titus, and because he’s a pretty prolific actor in general with roles in a wide variety of big and small-screen works. Admittedly, Titus had a lot of his personality established elsewhere (play Space Marine 2, hint hint), but he likewise adds a bit of himself into proceedings, rather than this just being a bunch of generic Space Marines Space Marining. There’s a nice little bit of unspoken acting about midway through that tells a little story of the dynamic between these two, without a single word, and I like that a lot. That said, everyone else you’ll see on screen is pretty much a nonentity here. That’s not a total loss, because we’re working with such a short run-time here, but it’s still a little disappointing. We could have had some good intra-squad dynamics, but instead there’s just a couple more guys to pad out the body count. And oh boy, does this episode have a body count.
As a horror person, I’m pretty desensitised to gore, but I’d be lying if I didn’t note how impressed I was by the kills here. Effort has clearly been taken to capture just how Space Marines fight, in a way I don’t personally feel has ever really come through outside of novels. It’s common to see Big Humans in Beefy Armour fighting stuff and that being cool, no matter what franchise, and most 40k offerings so far have managed to put that sort of content out without issue. In these works, the big armoured guys move like you’d expect a person to move in heavy armour; a bit slow, but powerful. If you want to see some Marines fighting with the speed and clinical efficiency you hear about in the written lore, though? You’re going to get your wish here.Â
The animation uses movement to great effect – not a single bit of energy is wasted, every body part is lethal, and rather than lazy slow motion to show how fast our protagonists are moving, they’re depicted as being so much faster than their opposition that it’s realistically one-sided. This is the kind of fighting you would picture when reading a lovingly-detailed fight scene in some Space Marine novel, then the author telling you it only lasted eight point two seconds of real time – except instead of that jarring ‘damn, I should have been imagining faster’, you’ve been seeing it at the intended speed the whole time. There’s one thing I’ll call out in particular without spoiling it, which is that we get to see Space Marines dealing with vehicular enemies the way we all want them to, by just being walking tanks themselves. It doesn’t disappoint.
In general, there’s a clear intention to capture the gothic horror of 40k in every detail of the setting, which shows through really well in pretty much every area. We get to see the usual ‘oh no this setting is awful’, shown in a variety of ways, most notably the typical candles and skulls you’d expect to be on everything. Where the intent shows through best is in the little things. I’m not going to say exactly what the enemy is, but the way the environment responds to it is really well-handled, in all the details you catch from just the right amount of attention. You’re not freeze-framing and zooming in, because you don’t have to – it’s just obvious enough as not to be intrusive, but rewards your focus. It’s exactly what I imagined it would be like, and really sells the setting to you in a way that doesn’t undermine the badassery you’ve watched, but instead contextualises it in a ‘okay wow this universe really is scary huh’ fashion.
The thing is, though, for most 40k fans, this will just seem like a real good animation. It’s cool to have, and an enjoyable way to spend a quick work break, but it’s not going to be showing you anything you haven’t seen in your mind’s eye a hundred times. Translating that to the screen is cool, and as a proof of concept for the Amazon/Games Workshop collaboration this episode doesn’t really put a foot wrong. If you’re a 40k fan, you should be getting excited for what the Henry Cavill vehicle is going to do, because they’ve shown with this episode that – at least on a small scale – they can do it, and do it right, the way the people want. The real value of this is less for the established enjoyers and more for people randomly clicking through.Â
Put yourself in their shoes. They’ve seen someone reacting to Space Marine 2 content on YouTube, then they get recommended some lore content on TikTok, and now they’re interested, so they go and watch a quick short on an easily accessible platform – most folks have Prime Video, whereas WarhammerTV is realistically only going to be something you look at it you’re already invested. And it’s in that role, of snapshot into the 40k universe, that Secret Level does a really good job – your potential fan isn’t going to be overloaded with exposition, they’re just seeing some cool fights in the grim darkness of the far future. They’re going to want to know more about what they’ve seen, and they’re going to translate that into The next generations of wargamers will come from seeing stuff just like this. Thanks for reading, and I hope when the bigger stuff rolls around, our reviewers see as much to like as I did here.
Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. Want articles like this linked in your inbox every Monday morning? Sign up for our newsletter. And don’t forget that you can support us on Patreon for backer rewards like early video content, Administratum access, an ad-free experience on our website and more.
