'Mythic Quest' Keeps Turning Gaming-Industry Chaos Into One of Streaming's Standout Workplace Comedies

Similar mechanics, new skin: when It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's Rob McElhenney and Charlie Day branched out from their cult-hit sitcom back in 2020, that was the approach. Co-creating what was then known as Mythic Quest: Raven's Banquet alongside fellow It's Always Sunny writer Megan Ganz — and with McElhenney also starring — they took a comedy formula they knew, loved and excelled at, then swapped out the specifics. If this Apple TV+ series was a video game, rather than being set in the industry that creates them, it'd be the latest workplace-comedy expansion pack. Whether watching The Office,  Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine or Mythic Quest's platform stablemates Ted Lasso and Loot, laughing at the ups and downs of working life means spotting familiar elements, after all, because much about nine-to-five grind is universal.

Now streaming its third season, with new episodes dropping weekly since mid-November — and also going by a shortened name since season two — Mythic Quest slots smoothly into its genre. Far more conventional than It's Always Sunny, which smartly and savagely satirises despicable behaviour in, around and tangentially related to a Philly bar, McElhenney and Day's second series unpacks its gaming-industry setting and the attitudes that come with it. Still, the Mythic Quest crew isn't afraid to blow things up and respawn, as it virtually has between season two and three. At the end of 2021's batch of episodes, the eponymous studio fractured, with guru-like founder Ian Grimm (McElhenney) and his Australian lead engineer Poppy Li (Charlotte Nicdao, Content) chasing new challenges by starting another company.

Since episode one, Ian has been Mythic Quest's visionary, with Poppy as his righthand woman. And, since the first season charted their troubles with the latest expansion pack for their massively multiplayer online role-playing hit, that relationship has ebbed and flowed. Sometimes, Mythic Quest HQ's general mayhem has been the cause, including the pressures of keeping their popular game profitable and its fans happy. Sometimes, it's been a battle of egos, wills and personalities between Ian, Poppy and their colleagues. In its first few episodes, the show took time to find its groove, but it has kept shining and brightly since it did. 

The key, including through season two, is that central dynamic. McElhenney plays Grimm as someone drunk on his own idea of himself, not to mention the celebrity and status that's come with his game, as well as the adoration and power. Meanwhile, Nicdao's Poppy barely manages to cope, especially with her confidence in such a male-dominated industry. By sending the pair out on their own at GrimPop, where they're now endeavouring to launch a new title called Hera that's Poppy's creation rather than Ian's, season three doubles down on that contrast between the duo — and, in the process, on the struggle for women in gaming to be given the room they deserve to thrive, lead and shatter the glass ceiling.

A gifted coder, as well as the technical force behind Mythic Quest the game, Poppy has always wanted recognition and respect. That's been a running theme in Nicdao's roles over the past few years, in fact, given that the also-excellent ABC iView short-form series Content had the Aussie talent playing a wannabe influencer who desperately hoped her online antics would bring her fame. Nicdao's career dates back almost two decades now, including past roles on The Slap, Please Like Me and Get Krack!n, but she's certainly catapulted to stardom herself after her #Flipgirl days thanks to Mythic Quest. On-screen, though, Poppy's version of seeking the spotlight involves having her own success rather than just always being stuck in Ian's shadow. So, branching away from the title that made their careers but still remaining together, the pair are now meant to be in a true 50/50 partnership. 

Thanks to that big season-two finale move — which could've doubled as an overall farewell if the show wasn't renewed for both a third and a fourth season — Mythic Quest's current stint contemplates breaking out of comfort zones, embracing new challenges and welcoming fresh voices. Like most of the series' comic stylings, that thematic thread aims to call out the insular nature of gaming and its many imbalances, widening its scope to examine getting something new off the ground rather than toiling for an existing hit. Within the storyline, though, Ian and Poppy are just on a different floor of the same building as Mythic Quest's regular crew. Encounters with neurotic executive producer David Brittlesbee (David Hornsby, Good Girls), his brusk assistant Jo (Jessie Ennis, The Flight Attendant), disgraced ex-finance head (Danny Pudi, Community), and former testers Dana (Imani Hakim, Cam) and Rachel (prolific voice actor Ashly Burch) are still a regular part of their days, and a source of chaos.

While a new level awaits for Mythic Quest's characters — including goodbyes to some — the series itself isn't completely in the same situation in season three. It shakes things up in a narrative sense, but understands what has always made the show power up: its well-written and wonderfully cast characters. Indeed, by focusing on Ian and Poppy's relationship, as well as plenty of other pairings within the series, McElhenney, Day and McElhenney still keep finding new depths to explore. Unlikely couples are an old workplace-comedy favourite, and not just because it's easy to wring humour out of stranding opposites together. In a genre already so steeped in the everyday regardless of the kind of business its on-screen figures get their paycheque from, navigating clashing personalities isn't just relatable — it's reality.

Rounding up a motley crew, watching them bounce around, seeing how they change and grow — if the characters in It's Always Sunny were actually capable of significant change and growth (and if it suited the show for them to evolve and mature, which it doesn't), then McElhenney and Day's two series would have plenty in common. They still do, of course, including an incisive ability to parody and play around with the whole workplace setup. As Mythic Quest keeps going, it too gets sharper and funnier, and more aware of the flaws that make all of us who we are. It mightn't end up breaking records as the longest-running live-action sitcom ever made, as It's Always Sunny has after 15 seasons (and counting), but pressing play for another astute and amusing round keeps proving easy.

Check out the trailer for Mythic Quest below:

Mythic Quest streams via Apple TV+.