Like Sena’s novel, the game was one-of-a-kind in its space. It was a shorter campaign at about ten hours, but the storytelling was focused, the visuals were evocative and spectacular-looking for the time, and most notably, the material didn’t shy away from the scientifically dense exposition of the book, which helped set it apart from the series it was most commonly compared to, Resident Evil. And on that note, with remakes of ‘90s classics making all kinds of noise in recent years, a fully realized version of Parasite Eve is long overdue.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – (The Witcher, Andrzej Sapkowski)
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has sold over 50 million copies worldwide and earned top spots on “best” and “greatest” lists ever since it set the gold standard for modern action RPGs when it released ten years ago. In fact, as the years go by, it becomes clearer and clearer just how monumental CD Projekt Red’s magnum opus is–even in 2025, it can stand up to every other game in its weight class.
One of biggest indicators of The Witcher 3’s staggering success other than the fact that it’s sold over 50 million units to date and counting is that it’s helped raise awareness of its source material, Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski’s The Witcher novels and short stories, which Netflix’s series is adapted from. The game’s story takes place after the events of the books and show and takes a few liberties with the original lore, but it maintains the spirit of the franchise. Together, the game, books, and show have cemented The Witcher as one of the defining fantasy stories of the past 50 years.
BioShock – (Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand)
There are a lot of things that make BioShock such an intoxicating and timeless experience, from its evocative art style to its unforgettable scripted moments, to the haunting atmosphere of Rapture, the leaky underwater city that serves as the game’s setting. But it’s the ideological potency of the game’s writing that makes it so rich. While the game’s story is wholly original, it’s a less-than-subtle critique of Objectivism, the philosophical backbone of much of Ayn Rand’s work.
Andrew Ryan, Rapture’s creator and the story’s unveiled antagonist, is the most obvious embodiment of Rand’s Objectivist worldview, fashioning an ultimately doomed vision of a society where self-centeredness and productivity are paramount. There are numerous references to Rand’s work littered throughout the game, like “Andrew Ryan” being a loose anagram of Ayn Rand, and the “Who is Atlas?” posters hung around Rapture being a flip on the line “Who is John Galt?” from Atlas Shrugged.
Spec Ops: The Line (Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad)
Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness most notably inspired Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, with both pieces examining the psychological and ethical horrors that war conjures in its ground combatants. While also a riff on Conrad’s classic, Spec Ops: The Line leverages the experiential nature of video games to take the themes of Heart of Darkness to a new level, putting the moral paradoxes and impossibilities of its characters in the player’s hands. When the game was released in 2012, the age of the bro shooter was in full swing, and it was a sobering subversion of all of the ultraviolent indulgences players had become so numb to.
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