Halfway by way of its first season, Apple’s Mythic Quest threw a wild curveball with “A Dark Quiet Death” — an unexpectedly dramatic episode that chronicled the rise and fall of one other online game growth group. “A Dark Quiet Death” was the primary occasion of Mythic Quest switching up its comedic formulation to inform an earnest story about what makes individuals fall in love with video games. And since then, each season of Mythic Quest has featured a backstory episode that felt emblematic of the sequence’ narrative strengths.
Side Quest, Apple TV Plus’ new Mythic Quest spinoff miniseries, feels so much like a set of “A Dark Quiet Death”-style episodes because it introduces a slew of latest characters (and brings again a few veterans) whose lives have all been touched by one of many world’s hottest video games. When I not too long ago spoke with Side Quest’s co-creators, Ashly Burch, John Howell Harris, and Katie McElhenney, they instructed me that the brand new present’s stylistic similarities to Mythic Quest’s forays into the previous have been fully intentional. But after years of specializing in characters who see themselves as larger-than-life gods, the Side Quest group was rather more inquisitive about telling tales concerning the gamers who made Mythic Quest a success.
“When we first began writing Mythic Quest, we talked about how these characters are kind of like gods who’re creating this digital world,” Burch mentioned. “So if the individuals inside Mythic Quest HQ are the gods, then Side Quest is concerning the mortals which are being affected by the alternatives of the gods.”
Side Quest wanders additional and additional away from Ian Grimm (Rob McElhenney) and everybody else working at Mythic Quest Studios over the course of its four-episode-long season. But the sequence truly kicks off with an episode revolving across the sport’s artwork director, Phil Birch (Derek Waters), as he tries to make a while for a trip along with his girlfriend Maude (Anna Konkle). Even although working instantly on Mythic Quest (the sport) may make its followers see Phil as one of many sport’s gods, Burch felt that his historical past of being exploited by his colleagues made him the proper mortal to open the present.
“We needed to guide with a transitional touchdown pad between Mythic Quest prime and Side Quest, and we thought that Phil, bless him, is an excellent encapsulation of the alternatives Mythic Quest’s primary characters have been making,” Burch defined. “From seasons 2–3, Phil might be handled just like the workplace rest room greater than some other character, and he’s simply on the whims of those deranged creatives.”
All of Side Quest’s characters have some kind of relationship with Mythic Quest, however the co-creators noticed the present as a chance to discover completely different sorts of audiences that may gravitate towards widespread items of IP as they develop into completely different mediums. At this level within the sport’s existence, Mythic Quest has been tailored into a success comedian sequence that shops just like the one featured in “Pull List” can barely handle to maintain in inventory. And whereas Mythic Quest staff like Phil may be determined to get away from the franchise, Harris famous that there are numerous people who find themselves determined to grow to be a part of it, just like the skilled musicians featured in Side Quest’s Tár-like episode, “Fugue.”
“At one level, it was information to me that the music from video games like Zelda and Final Fantasy goes on tour all world wide to be performed by full orchestras in live performance halls and theaters packed full of individuals,” Harris mentioned. “I used to be fascinated by how widespread these concert events are, but additionally the extent of musicianship required to play at that stage in such a aggressive setting.”
Image: Apple
The season comes full circle in “The Last Raid,” an episode set nearly fully inside Mythic Quest (the sport), as a gaggle of teenagers go browsing collectively hoping to tackle some highly effective bosses solely to understand that their real-world friendships are operating low on HP. Burch mentioned “The Last Raid” was born, partially, out of the group’s love for traditional machinima sequence like Red vs. Blue. But the thought of taking viewers within Mythic Quest additionally struck them as the proper technique to illustrate how each the sport and the bigger model have reworked in response to what’s been occurring behind the scenes.
“Part of what’s attention-grabbing about ‘The Last Raid’ is the way in which you type of see that Mythic Quest, the sport, is altering as a result of the model can also be increasing,” McElhenney mentioned. “It nearly appears like this group of children is taking part in a throwback model of Mythic Quest. World of Warcraft is an efficient analogue as a result of it’s the same scenario the place you will have a sport that has a rabid fan base of people who find themselves loyal to it though it’s not essentially being up to date and maintained.”
Though Side Quest drops a few hints about how Mythic Quest may change after its season 4 finale, the group’s largest purpose with the spinoff was to depart viewers guessing about which varieties of latest views they’d be seeing this world from subsequent. And that meant leaning into the tonal flexibility the unique sequence has grow to be recognized for by veering off the crushed path.
“I really feel like that’s the way it was with Mythic Quest’s departure episodes — particularly in season 1 when nobody was anticipating them,” McElhenney mentioned. “Shows simply don’t try this type of factor normally, however as a result of Mythic Quest prime was capable of take that leap, we had extra inventive freedom with Side Quest to embrace the anthology mannequin and make each episode really feel utterly completely different.”
All 4 episodes of Side Quest are actually streaming on Apple TV Plus.
