Secret Level

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Sega Studios San Francisco, formerly known as Secret Level, Inc., was an American video game developer based in San Francisco, California. It was founded in December 1999 by Jeremy Gordon, Otavio Good, and Josh Adams.

Before being purchased by Sega, Secret Level, Inc. was a small game development studio. The company ported and developed original game titles, and was also known for their tools and technology expertise. The company took on a wide variety of work for hire projects that focused on either art or programming. The company developed several commercial tools for authoring game UI and menus. They also had a long time relationship with Epic Games for bringing the Unreal Engine to several game consoles. During its lifetime the studio developed games for Dreamcast, PC, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PSP, Xbox, and Xbox 360.

Subject ID: 50551

The company was originally divided into three separate legal entities; Secret Level Games, Secret Level Tools, and Secret Level Technology. This was a reflection of the company's business model for achieving developmental stability. Each group was to have its own income streams. The divisions were later merged a few years into the studio's operation.

Founder Jeremy Gordon was the Studio Director and CTO from 1999 to 2009.

Secret Level's first game release was Unreal Tournament for the Sega Dreamcast, a port of the PC game by Epic Games. The game had additional content created and work done to increase its appeal to a console audience. The reception was excellent and the game received an Editor's Choice Award from IGN. It scored 90 on Metacritic. The game also began a longtime relationship between Epic and Secret Level, with the latter supporting Unreal Engine technology on the PlayStation 2 and Gamecube for several years. Secret Level wrote the first Unreal export tools for Maya in 2002.

Secret Level Tools developed Strobe: Flash for Games SDK as a UI solution for game developers in 2000. The product was used in several LucasArts titles which began a relationship which led to the Starfighter game ports. The product was suspended in mid 2001.

The company was hired by LucasArts to port Star Wars: Starfighter to the Xbox in 2001. The game was titled Star Wars: Starfighter: Special Edition and featured new content, new playable ships, and added detail to the levels. This was followed up with Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter for Xbox which featured even more Secret Level generated content, including additional game modes, and a new Coruscant game level. Both games were well received, and scored 76 and 78 respectively on Metacritic.

Secret Level's first original game was Magic: The Gathering - Battlegrounds released in November 2003 by Atari. The project brought the classic Wizards of the Coast Magic: The Gathering trading card game to the Xbox and PC in full 3D. It was designed with faithful translations of classic creatures, spells, and enchantments for real-time strategic duelling. The game was generally well received with a Metacritic score of 72 for the Xbox. The company used the game as an opportunity to grow its art department significantly.

The company signed up to do America's Army: Rise of a Soldier in early 2004 for Ubisoft. It was an Xbox version of the tactical first-person shooter America's Army, released by the U.S. Army in 2002 as a communications and recruiting tool. The new game added a story and levels to appeal more broadly to a console audience. The game also included a new single player mode based on Major Jason Amerine's experiences in Afghanistan in the year 2001. The game was generally well received with a Metacritic score of 70 for the Xbox. The company used the game as an opportunity to grow its game design department significantly. Secret Level was unable to get an acceptable frame rate for the PS2 version of the game and that release was canceled in late 2005.

The company took on a number of work for hire projects over the years (see below) which tasked either the art or engineering departments. During the period 2004-2006 there were over half a dozen small projects.

Secret Level joined the Khronos Group in May 2004.

The company completed a port of Karaoke Revolution to the Xbox for Konami in late 2004. It was the first karaoke video game for the Xbox to include a vocal analyzer that measures the pitch and rhythm of a player's voice. It was well received with a Metacritic score of 80, and an IGN Editor's Choice Award.

In September 2004, Secret Level moved from its long time San Francisco offices in the Flood Building at 870 Market Street, to larger ones at 123 Townsend Street, across from AT&T Park.

Secret Level became Ageia's first NovodeX solution development house in March 2005. The art department produced demo material for the technology.

Founder Josh Adams left the company in mid 2005 to join Epic Games. The company released Sidecar in late 2005, an SDK and authoring environment for game UI and menus. Orange Design, who had used Strobe several years earlier on the Starfighter projects, worked with Secret Level to complete the UI for X-Men: The Official Movie Game. The game shipped in March 2006.

Secret Level began work on Golden Axe in summer 2005 for Sega and rapidly made progress with development of both the game and a new game engine. Sega was so impressed it decided to acquire the studio.

Subject ID: 50551

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Subject ID: 50551