Video games and Hollywood have a complicated relationship. For years, studios have tried adapting video games for the big screen, and although these adaptations are often profitable, they never seem to satisfy audiences. But with recent TV adaptations on streaming services finding massive critical and audience acclaim, we may be on the brink of a video game adaptation renaissance.
“First and foremost, video games are the most profitable sector of the entertainment industry,” said junior writing for film and television major Matias Herrera. “Each game is already IP (intellectual property) with an existing fan base for it. There’s a huge sector of the population that plays video games, not just for the competitive sport, but also the stories. So the industry looks to games like ‘Super Mario,’ ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ and ‘The Last of Us’ and they go, ‘There are massive fan bases already available here. If we make an attempt at a movie, and the time is right, it could be a cultural phenomenon.’”
Cartoons based on games have been around since the ‘80s, and the ‘90s saw the first batch of live-action film adaptations, including “Super Mario Bros.,” “Street Fighter” and “Mortal Kombat.” These action/comedies were mostly profitable but received mixed reviews, establishing how the industry and audiences would regard video game movies: fun but forgettable popcorn flicks that can appeal to wide audiences.
“There are certain characters that are more suited for movies based on the audience,” Herrera told The Panther. “Why do we get ‘Sonic’ and ‘Super Mario’ movies? Because those are characters that appeal to children, and children are generally not going to have the attention span to sit down for the entire duration of ‘The Last of Us.’ It is not a surprise to me that ‘Fallout’ and ‘The Last of Us,’ these more adult, satirical and dark games aimed at young adults and teens, get TV adaptations, because those are the kinds of audiences that are willing to invest themselves in the longer amount of time needed.”
The film adaptations that followed in the 2000s fit the same pattern as before; most, like “Doom,” the “Resident Evil” series, the “Hitman” series and “Assassin’s Creed” had decent box-office performances and mostly negative reviews. Many adaptations in the last decade managed to reach significant box office success, including “Warcraft,” “Uncharted,” “Five Nights at Freddy’s,” the “Sonic” series and “A Minecraft Movie,” but their reviews have still been very mixed.
The first notable live-action adaptation of a game into TV was “Halo” in 2022, and although the show was cancelled after two seasons due to low viewership, it received generally positive reviews. “Gangs of London,” “The Last of Us” and “Fallout” followed, and all three of these recent TV adaptations have found engagement and received very positive reviews from both critics and audiences alike. With TV expanding significantly through streaming services over the last few years, the reviews seem to indicate that game adaptations done through this medium are better.
“If you want to capture a game in an honorable way, I think it has to be through a TV show,” said Morgan Read-Davidson, Chapman’s director of undergraduate writing programs. “Games are long, and a TV show gives you time to develop characters in a way that is similar to how they would be developed in a game. You become close to a character in a game because you spend so much time being them, right? And you can’t be a character in a TV show, but you can get to know them better through spending that time with them.”
Read-Davidson said, elaborating on a particular TV adaptation he is fond of: “Honestly, in my opinion, the best adaptation right now of a video game is ‘Fallout.’ Every ‘Fallout’ game is a new story that takes place in the same world. So they made the show like they would a new game in the series. They put us in LA and said, ‘What are the iconic features of the games?’ They created characters out of wholesale that are true to the backstory of the game itself. And they can still do all of the marketing, which is having the Easter eggs and fan service. I thought they did it in a really clever way and it was good writing.”
Creating an original story within a video game world is an adaptation strategy that can appeal to the fans of the game without the pressure and expectations that come with adapting a beloved existing storyline. An example of such a method is the hit animated show “Arcane”: it expanded upon the “League of Legends” universe with unique storylines, and is currently the highest-rated Netflix original series on IMDb.
“I think that something we can notice in particular with ‘The Last of Us’ is just how many incoming fans of the original walk away feeling that their integrity as a fan has been violated by the choices the show makes when compared against its reference material,” Herrera told the Panther.
Herrera said, elaborating on the nuances of adapting between mediums: “It is important to seriously consider what about the initial source material truly worked, and to be open to stealing. Which is a funny thing to say, but creators behind a lot of adaptations have this strong desire to do something different from the original, to provide a new angle or perspective, but I think that is going to emerge naturally as a result of the new medium. I would much rather an adaptation faithfully reproduce a moment that fans have yearned to see on the big screen or even on television, as opposed to potentially butchering it because there was an unnecessary risk taken.”
It seemed for a while that TV and video games were on a path to converge even further, with games like Telltale’s popular 2012 “The Walking Dead” video game series playing out in an episodic format and Netflix investing in interactive choose-your-own-adventure TV episodes like 2018’s “Black Mirror: Bandersnatch.” However, the trend didn’t last long; Telltale shut down and was later bought by LCG Entertainment, and Netflix is currently removing all of its interactive content, focusing instead on actual video games now available on the platform.
“I think people want two different ways of being entertained,” Read-Davidson told The Panther. “With the ‘Bandersnatch’ experiment, people thought it was interesting, but it was too much work without much payoff. Instead, we say, ‘Do I want to watch a show or do I want to pick up my controller?’ It depends on what I want my involvement to be, right? If I want to be involved, I’ll pick up my controller. If I don’t want to have to think about that, and I just want to experience something, then I’ll watch a show. And that doesn’t mean that you can’t have active experiences in mediums other than games. If there’s something to be solved and we’re putting the pieces together, that active engagement will still happen in traditional narrative, and people still love to do that.”
The television medium seems to hold massive potential for future adaptations of video games that can finally satisfy critics and audiences. While fans of any existing IP will typically remain steadfast on the original being the better version, TV adaptations are still bringing stories loved by the gaming demographic to new audiences through a more accessible medium.
“What I’ve enjoyed about ‘The Last of Us’ on TV has been watching my friends, whom I ranted to about the game for years, fall in love with the game by proxy,” Herrera said. “There’s a large swath of people who will never experience certain stories because there is a barrier to entry on video games. There is no skill in sitting down and watching a TV show. But, if you want to enjoy the story of a video game, you have to be willing to interact with it. And I think that’s part of the reason why these adaptations have been getting so popular: because they open up these great stories for people who are less willing to put themselves in the driver’s seat.”
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