Season 4 of a TV show is not something I write about very often, given my focus is video games. But Season 4 of Mythic Quest is another matter.
Debuting with the first two episodes on January 29 on Apple TV+, the show brings back the workplace comedy about a video game studio. The ensemble cast returns with stars including Rob McElhenney (as the mercurial creative director Ian Grimm) and Charlotte Nicdao (tech leader Poppy Li) and more. The show is good at skewering the sometimes ridiculous culture of video game industry, and it’s on the mark as it was originally created by Ubisoft.
The show is silly as usual, but I like how one of the opening scenes is about Play Pen, a user-generated content gimmick aimed at reviving the studio’s core online game. By the second episode, the users are all busy making sex games and the studio has to figure out what to do about it. David enlists the help of the studio’s ethics committee to find the answer. And, of course, AI is the next big trend that gets skewered in the show.
Game tester Rachel (played by Ashly Burch) has now been appointed the head of monetization for the studio. She will be hard-pressed to be more evil than Brad Bakshi (played by Dani Pudi) at making money.
The studio’s boss David Brittlesbee (played by David Hornsby, executive producer) continues to be caught in between the studio leads and the corporate headquarters. It’s still all-too-real when it comes to references to silly things in the game industry. Under preview, I’ve been checking it out.
The opening show, Boundaries, spells out the new responsibilities and boundary lines being drawn by the characters as their lives change. Ian and Poppy have rejoined the studio after striking out on their own. But Poppy, ever the programming workaholic, now isn’t working as hard because she has a new boyfriend. It’s interesting in that the show recognizes real-world game development problems, like too much crunch, or long work hours, often unpaid. So, of course, Poppy creates an AI version of herself to do work for her and help Ian with his middle-of-the-night strokes of brilliance.
The season will have 10 episodes, with the final one dropping on Apple TV+ on March 26.
Mythic Quest is executive produced by McElhenney and Charlie Day under their RCG banner, Michael Rotenberg and Nicholas Frenkel on behalf of 3Arts, and Margaret Boykin, Austin Dill, and Gérard Guillemot for Ubisoft Film & Television. Hornsby and Megan Ganz also executive produce. The series is produced for Apple TV+ by Lionsgate, 3 Arts Entertainment and Ubisoft. The first three seasons of Mythic Quest are now streaming globally on Apple TV+.
In the new season, the show also has an expansion of the Mythic Quest universe, Side Quest, which explores the lives of employees, players and fans who are impacted by the game in an anthology format. If you need a rest from CNN/Fox News all the time and our current political landscape, I recommend Mythic Quest as a nice diversion.