Another year, another smash hit with the Chargers schedule release video.

The 2025 edition featured a Minecraft theme but kept the yearly tradition of poking fun at other teams and cities with various easter eggs.

The video is the consensus No. 1 schedule release video among NFL teams, getting top marks from the likes of USA Today, Sports Illustrated, SB Nation, Yahoo Sports and others.

The video also went viral again, receiving over 400,000 interactions and 105,000-plus shares on Instagram, plus more than 18 million views on Twitter/X.

Here's an inside look at how the video came to life:

How and why was Minecraft the choice for this year's video?

Each year, the Chargers main mission for their schedule release video is to blend communities together.

"It's taking those two things and kind of merging them together so we're speaking to multiple audiences," said David Bretto, the Chargers Director, Creative Video. "Honestly, that is the secret to success for schedule release.

"Just inviting people into our ecosystem that normally wouldn't be there," Bretto added.

Yes, the video is centered around the Chargers 2025 schedule.

But over the past few years, the Bolts have ventured outside of that space with forays into anime and the Sims video game.

When Minecraft was floated as an idea in February, more than a month of research was spent looking into the possibilities on just what exactly could be created.

Once the idea was fleshed out, the Chargers content team set out to mesh the world of Minecraft and the NFL landscape.

"An idea just comes to life and we end up running with it," said Megan Julian, the Chargers Senior Director, Digital and Social Media.

Julian added: "We always want to pay homage to a community outside of football. It was a really cool way for us to play in multiple universes, if you will," Julian added."

How did the production process start for the video?

Just like the anime and Sims videos, the Chargers had people in-house who had plenty of Minecraft experience.

Bailey Pelletier, the Chargers Associate Editor, Creative Video, took the lead.

"He's a Minecraft savant," Bretto said of Pelletier, who is only 25 and one of the youngest full-time members on staff.

Pelletier teamed up with a group of five other builders who helped build and design sets, make skins (costumes), decorate sets or implement various easter eggs into the video.

The group of builders consisted of Jaemin Cho (Senior Vertical Video Coordinator, Organic Social Media), Michael Gonzalez (Coordinator, Digital Media), Will Hahn (Lead Cinematographer), Hannah Johnson (Coordinator, Organic Social Media) and Luke Kohli (Producer/Editor, Creative Video).

The group worked in sync to divvy up roles and hit the ground running in mid-March, even if they had various backgrounds with the game.

Kohli, for example, had played Minecraft long ago on Xbox and had to learn how to play in on a computer. Cho had watched watched Minecraft YouTubers and had played minimally on an iPad.

"Everyone's strong suit kind of came out as we started," Pelletier said. "Some people were better at texturing or making character skins, others were more adapt at building or importing scenes.

"After the first several weeks of building, we discovered those roles and leaned into that to help us delegate the work," Pelletier added. "So, one person wasn't responsible for the entirety of the scene."

Hahn said: "Everyone had kind of played the game differently. I had played the game a lot but I hadn't played since I was a kid. And I was playing back in the early infancy of the game."

It was an all-hands-on-deck effort, with people from multiple facets of the content department coming together.

Gonzalez, for example, mostly works on the back end of Chargers.com, but was a key piece on helping build sets for the video.

While one person worked on a set, someone else would come in and decorate it while a different person made custom skins.

Once a location was built, people then had to essentially film different scenes before everything was edited together for Wednesday's 5 p.m. (PT) drop.

And while the endeavor was certainly a group effort, many involved gave Pelletier a special shoutout for his tireless work.

"He has infinite knowledge, has been playing it forever and is a fan of the genre," Bretto said. "He just has a genuine love for the characters and really wanted to do right by them.

"He kept us in a good place with Minecraft lore. And then we were able to sprinkle in NFL storylines," Bretto added.

Julian said: "Bailey was really instrumental … we 'd come up with an idea and he'd run down how we could possibly do it in Minecraft."

Hahn added: "This would not have been possible without Bailey. He was behind the scenes and making everything possible by expending the game's horizons."

Overall, many people associated the project to essentially being a movie production.

"It was more of a film-making animation process than a video game," Bretto said. "It was approached about making an animation that just happened to be in the constraints of Minecraft."

Just how much effort went into creating the video?

All in all, the group of six builders spent more than 500 hours on the video.

They also created 15,000 villagers that were mostly used in the Colts portion of the video with the car race.

Pelletier said the entire landscape spanned more than 48 million blocks.

"That's a pretty large area to cover," Pelletier said. "That area held all of our sets or locations or buildings."

Hahn added: "If anybody thinks this was a fun time where we were playing video games, it wasn't. It was fun, don't get me wrong, but we were building sets."

And that data doesn't include the hours spent in writers' room meetings where people toss around which jokes to use and how they can be implemented in the video.

Keep in mind, an easter egg that lands in February or March might not be relevant by the time the schedule comes out in mid-May.

Bretto said some of the end credit scenes were completed on Monday, less than 48 hours before the video dropped.

And the final version was exported around 4 p.m., an hour before the video went live.

"We could have done it earlier but you're always making minor tweaks to polish it up," Bretto said.

What do the Chargers have in store for next year?

The wheels have already been turning on next year's video, even if it is still 12 months away.

Bretto said the Chargers annual viral videos have turned the schedule release process into it's own beast.

"It's a year-long process trying to figure out what we're going to do," Bretto said. "Everyone who has done multiple of these has kind of trained their brain to be thinking about schedule release about all facets of their lives. We're constantly thinking about what could be next."

And yes, that means plenty of pressure to deliver each and every year to meet the standard that has been set.

"I definitely feel it," Bretto said. "I know the reputation we've built for ourselves so it's like, 'How long can we keep climbing to the top of the mountain?'

"I feel incredible stress. I'm pretty much thinking about it 24/7/365," Bretto added.

Julian said: "I don't think anyone puts more pressure on us than us. David and I have been doing this together now since 2019 and we put a lot of pressure on the success of this video. You always have the worry that it's not going to be as good as last year."

The Chargers next schedule release video hasn't been nailed down yet and likely won't be until the spring of 2026.

But all involved said the yearly success and accolades wouldn't be possible without a talented and tirelessly working team, along with support from ownership and the rest of the front office.

"The biggest thing, always, is that it's a credit to this organization for allowing creators to create and giving us the runway to do cool things and believing in us and trusting our vision," Julian said. "There is a trust and I'm forever appreciative to them."

Bretto added: "They give us a lot of creative license, which you don't get from a lot of other professional sports teams. And then thank you to Minecraft for letting us use their IP. They just had a billion-dollar movie and then could have told us to pound sand. They believed it what we were doing and it turned out great."

We'll let Pelletier have the final word here.

"It was huge team effort, especially from the six [builders], on top of the brainstorm and guidance from the group," Pelletier said. "It took a lot of hands to get the final product and it all came together way better than I thought at the beginning of this project. Every scene had a little bit from everyone."

"The support we have to build things like this is what makes these schedule release so good every year," Pelletier added.