What Makes a Good Video Game Adaptation?
We tried so hard to be great, we forgot to be good. - Viktor, Arcane.
Welcome to Beyond the Controller #3. With the recent success of the Fallout TV series, the official cancelling of the Halo Tv series season 3, and the abysmal flop of the Borderlands film, This week we are discussing:
Video Game Adaptations
The Faithful One
The Spin off
The Director knows best
The Cash Grab
Video Game Adaptions
Lara Croft, Super Mario, and Resident Evil are all gaming franchises that are making their way into the world of movies. In 2022, the Game Awards recognized the need for a category honoring the “best video game adaptation” as gamers have been served a buffet of exceptional adaptations in television and film. there have been so many great releases recently such as Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, Arcane, and Last of Us television show. But for every three successful creations we get audiences get, a major video game adaption flop such as the Halo television series and the recent Borderlands movie surfaces.
Video game adaptations refer to the transformation of video game content into other media formats, such as films, TV shows, books, or even stage plays. These adaptations aim to bring the narratives, characters, and worlds of video games into new formats, often to reach a broader audience or to explore the stories in different ways. This can include: Film, comics, books, or any other medium other than video games.
The success of video game adaptations has varied widely. While some have been critically acclaimed and commercially successful, others have struggled to live up to fan expectations or capture the unique qualities of the games they’re based on. The challenge lies in translating interactive and visually dynamic gaming experiences into more linear or different media formats without losing the essence of what makes the original game special because gaming is a genre where player decisions can alter the narrative.
The Faithful One
Some adaptations do not stray too far or stray at all from the source material. A faithful adaptation has respect for the original work and tries to recreate it within a different medium. Successful faithful adaptations include, The Last of Us, Castlevania, Street Fighter II the animated movie, and Mortal Kombat (1995). These films attempt to capture the same magic players have had within the game in a single linear viewing experience and something more.
2023 game awards winner, HBO series The Last of Us. The show’s cinematic quality, pacing, and subtle prologue enhance the overall narrative. It appreciates the series and expands the game’s world and introduces unexpected changes to the story. One notable aspect is the deeper exploration of certain characters’ lives, like Sam and Henry, through more extensive backstories.
This feature is made very doable by the source material. The Last Of Us video game plays like interactive cinema. The story is linear allowing for the adaptation to give a clear beginning middle and end that matches the source material
The Game Awards best adaptation winner of 2022, Arcane, a series based on League of Legends, sits in a unique role within this section because the narrative provided is faithful but it adds more to the story. In League of Legend, the website lore section is the primary source of the narrative, which sets it apart from traditional video games. Arcane uses these details to further develop conflicts within two locations, Zaun and Piltover, along with the sisterhood of Vi, and Jinx. It goes further by adding interesting side characters such as Silco and Vivica to the canon.
However, these kinds of adaptations can only exist with very linear narrative experiences. With many games having an open world, or decision based narratives, faithful adaptions satisfy both the die hard fanbase and the new viewers who give the movie a try. The Borderlands movie could never become one of these because it is narrative is very player driven.
That being said, this is one of the safer modes for success; however, it is also one of the hardest to implement. Success with a faithful adaptation means doing series homework on the content or being an avid gamer of said work. The director needs to understand what makes the content special within its DNA, not just surface level.
The Spin Off
Rather than attempting to recreate or reimagine the source material. Simply, take an already established IP, and tell an original story within it. This eases most of the needs of player expectations and allows creative breathing room for the writers and directors.
The spin off seeks to tell another story within the world of the game. Netflix’s animated movie, The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf, is a perfect example of this done correctly. It takes the gritty, dark-fantasy of the Witcher series, but takes the lens away from the titular Witcher, Geralt, and into the lens of his mentor, Vesemir as a young Witcher. Another example is Cyberpunk: Edgerunners from the Cyberpunk IP or the Fallout HBO Series. Both take the name and the world of the game, but craft unique original stories with them.
Criticism derives from the originality of the work. If the creators can tell such a great story, why do they use already established works? It is both a curse and a blessing in creating a spin-off series.
This style of adaptation is very difficult to pull off because it is difficult to draw in a new audience and its core audience. A spin off needs to have just enough of what players love, often with a new cast, new location, and new conflict.
The Director Knows Best
Videogames have come a long way, but they’re many who look at the medium as a lesser form of storytelling. Unfortunately, directors and other creatives get their hands on these titles, and try their best to reinvent the work they originate from with little success. These types of video game adaptations are the worst examples of how to recreate the magic of video game narratives on film.
These adaptations see their original works as lesser, not good enough, and need to be changed. Often character origins begin as remembered, but the plot differs, bends, twists.
Henry Cavill, the actor who played Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher adaptation, was vocal about his dissatisfaction with the changes. He states in an interview with Direct,
Paramount+’s Halo series. It’s mimicry, but without and concept of why the original did what it was doing. The series tries to be more like The Expanse, or Battle Star Galactica than Halo.
Sometimes, the source material is usually wafer thin and the filmmakers have to expand on it, which changes the entire plot and becomes something else.
These adaptations have very little redeeming qualities, if any. It is a recipe for disaster. It is what most video game adaptations in the 90s focused on. Thankfully, this is changing in our modern era.
The Cash Grab
While not inherently bad, this usually is the case. I say this because the Mario Movie, and Sonic the Hedgehog movie, were decent films, but their use was more than an easy cash grab because, face it, who doesn’t love those two beloved icons? As long as the film knows what it is and has fun with it, it can be a great time.
The struggle with this type of adaptation is often a misunderstanding of the source material. Some games have source material that is wafer thin and the filmmakers have to expand on it, which changes the whole narrative and becomes something else that unrecognizable. Other times, directors choose games that are too open-ended, they pick projects that are ambiguous for film and hope to reap the rewards off of the name brand alone.
These adaptations are merely an attempt to use the trendy or already established IP. They are not inherently bad, but are. Many of these adaptions are soulless. Check off the box interpretation of the original work.
The Borderlands movie is the quintessential example of a cash grab gone wrong. The movie uses established characters in the franchise and miscasts them. Do not understand that narrative in Borderlands is strong because of its open nature, which does not translate well into film, causing the writers to make something that players do not enjoy (or general audiences).
Some more cash grabs that do very little for the franchise but rake in the funds include: Tomb Raider, Uncharted, Resident Evil, Doom, Farcry, Prince of Persia, Monster Hunter.
Closing
As with most things in life, these categories exist within a spectrum. many of these titles exist within two or many of these types of adaptations.
My fellow nerds, we have been eating good with recent video game to film adaptations. Cheers to hoping there are more good shows to come.
Lastly, here are a list of some upcoming films:
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (December 20, 2024)
Minecraft: The Movie (April 4, 2025)
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 (Fall 2025)
The Super Mario Bros. Movie 2 (April 3, 2026)
The Legend of Zelda (TBA)
Ghost of Tsushima (TBA)
Until Dawn (TBA)
Gears of War (TBA)
Mortal Kombat 2 (TBA)
Return to Silent Hill (TBA)
Megaman (TBA)
Bioshock (TBA)
-As always, thank you. Go beyond gaming, Go Beyond the Controller.
Or Consider….
Other News
Silent Hill 2 Remake might be good? - I have been very scared of the trailers for this game, but the recent story trailer and gameplay seem to hold the spirit of what makes Silent Hill so terrifying. I hope the game lives up, I plan on writing more about it in October
Gamescom is happening - Expect lots of news and trailers for upcoming games.
Black myth: Wukong breaks steam charts - After all the hype, the game is finally releasing. Lets hope the trailers are as good as the game.
Ubisoft continues layoffs - We are living in some sort of paradoxical world were we are getting the best releases of a long time and the developers for them are getting fired for them?
Great read!! You made really good points.
Great read!! Def sad to see Borderlands sent video game adaptations back 20 yrs right after Last of Us exceeded expectations. Good points on the “Spin off” as I think for most cases that would be the safest approach for directors to seperate the comparisons but also honor the game’s overall feel