Mythic Quest’s particular ‘Everlight’ episode: the gang goes LARPing

Final time we noticed the gang behind the world’s hottest MMORPG, Mythic Quest, lead engineer Poppy Li had been promoted to co-creative director—full companions with the comically narcissistic Ian Grimm. Truly, that was simply the final time we noticed them within the workplace. A particular episode of Mythic Quest in Could of final yr, made in the course of the pandemic, confirmed the group struggling to take care of the isolation and uncertainty of COVID-19.
Right this moment, one other particular episode of Mythic Quest airs on Apple TV+, and it serves as form of a bookend to the Quarantine episode. The group is again within the workplace (aside from author CW Longbottom, who’s commuting remotely), however whereas issues are wanting up, there’s nonetheless an terrible lot of unpleasantness to shake off after a yr in lockdown. Additionally, they’re all dressed like full dorks, at the least in response to the everlasting anti-nerd Brad from Monetization.
Everlight, we be taught, is an in-game vacation within the Mythic Quest recreation world, nevertheless it’s not simply celebrated by gamers within the MMORPG. On the recreation developer’s workplace, the occasion is yearly noticed with fantasy costumes, decorations, and much and many LARPing, as staff compete in a fight event with foam swords, axes, and arrows. Your complete workplace is made to seem like a fantasy village, and the sitting queen and king are Poppy and Ian.
The Everlight vacation facilities round a cursed interval within the Mythic Quest MMO’s lore, when darkness fell over the land and everybody misplaced hope. The one factor that would break the darkness was the Blade of Gentle, and whereas the strongest warriors within the realm could not raise it, a small however courageous fighter freed the sword and dispelled the darkness. A real underdog story.
If it is not already obvious, the Everlight episode of Mythic Quest is simply as a lot concerning the pandemic because the Quarantine episode was. Whereas life is slowly returning to regular, the Mythic Quest group are looking for hope and forged away the darkness that is been hanging over every thing for the previous yr. And it is not a shock that Ian, who created the story of Everlight, does not even see it is a metaphor. The Sword of Gentle itself does not matter, solely the sunshine does: it is about discovering hope at the hours of darkness. (Ian does finally admit the sword is only a illustration of his penis. “You’ll be able to’t defeat darkness with a dick,” says Poppy.)
It’s good on this episode to see Ian and Poppy working side-by-side as a substitute of at one another’s throats as they normally are. About the one sticking level between them is that she does not get any of his pop-culture references (she’s by no means heard of Kerri Strug, and when he mentions Rudy for instance of a traditional underdog, she thinks he is speaking about an worker). And even Brad finally agrees to participate within the event so there could be a correct villain to defeat. Seems Brad, regardless of being anti-nerd, is aware of his approach round a faux foam sword.
Regardless of the pandemic being a giant theme of this episode, it is nonetheless a lot breezier than the Quarantine present, which was fairly dang brutal emotionally. (In a great way. It was a very good episode.) There are some genuinely nice particular results because the story of Everlight is dropped at life close to the tip of the episode, and hey, Anthony Hopkins himself narrates the story, so factors for that.
Lacking from Everlight, sadly, is a number of the conventional wacky office back-and-forth between characters that is the supply of most of Mythic Quest’s finest comedy. There’s simply not a lot time for it, because the starting of the episode consists of a number of minutes of animation, and there is an prolonged battle scene on the finish. However hey, it has been a tough yr. There’s nothing unsuitable with indulging in a little bit of fantasy.