Game on.
Rob McElhenney’s workplace comedy Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet is set to return to Apple’s streaming platform with an appropriately titled special, Mythic Quest: Quarantine. The one-off, which drops May 22, was entirely written, filmed and edited remotely on Apple iPhones as the cast and crew wait out the novel coronavirus pandemic from their respective homes around the country.
The half-hour installment leans into the moment, with the team behind the biggest ever multiplayer video game suddenly forced to live and work in quarantine. Written by McElhenney, co-creator Megan Ganz and exec producer/star David Hornsby, the episode features what will likely be relatable pandemic storylines: Poppy (Charlotte Nicdao) and Ian (McElhenney) struggle with enforced solitude, assistant Jo (Jessie Ennis) explains video conferencing to CW (F. Murray Abraham) with questionable results, and Brad (Danny Pudi) and David (Hornsby) stay busy … gaming, albeit with a charitable component to their friendly competition.
“Lots of workplaces are figuring out this whole working-from-home thing, and the gaming industry is no different. Virtual meetings are a new and special kind of hell, so I think people will relate. Yes, we’ve all had low points, but there have also been incredible moments of triumph and we wanted to celebrate that,” said McElhenney in a statement announcing the entry Friday.
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He continued, “We needed to shoot this episode fast without sacrificing quality. Thankfully, we’re living in a time when everyone’s got a camera in their pocket. Having an iPhone coupled with the ingenuity of our crew allowed us to make this unique piece of television in just days. We hope people enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it.”
The series, which is produced by Lionsgate, 3Arts Entertainment and game maker Ubisoft, has already been renewed for a second season. Its quarantine installment comes on the heels of a made-from-home entry from CBS’ All Rise, which became the first scripted series to produce an episode remotely, with its focus on how the legal system had moved to Zoom. In the weeks since, other series, including The Blacklist and Pop TV’s One Day at a Time, have found a way to generate fresh content through animation. The former relied on animation to complete its season, while the latter is producing an animated special later this spring.
