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There was a time when it felt like pretty much every big movie got a video game adaptation, and often, they weren’t very good, but you did occasionally get some pretty great ones, as anyone who remembers the game version of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King could attest to. You would, very occasionally, also get games that were seen as better than the movies they were based on, like the game version of X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
But more recently, there’s been a shift away from making these big game adaptations of blockbuster movies, so it might be fun to look at some newer movies (plus some classics that also didn’t get game adaptations, back in the day) and imagine which of them could potentially work as games. Only movies without official tie-in games will be considered below. There are plenty of older movies that got games that weren’t able to do the movie justice, in terms of gameplay (with the E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial game, for the Atari 2600, being perhaps the most infamous example), but it would complicate things to throw some of those in. For now, it’s just those movies without games that could technically work, as a certain kind of video game.
10
‘The Raid’ (2011)
The Raid is done in a way that makes it feel a bit like a video game. More specifically, an old-fashioned one where you have one level after another, and you’re pretty much always going in the one direction. The Raid almost feels two-dimensional, or at least as two-dimensional as a live-action movie can feel, with the levels being represented literally on account of the main character having to fight his way down each level of an apartment building.
So, sure, a game based on The Raid would be like a side-scroller, or a beat-em-up, and would probably have to feel retro. Or it could be like a fighting game, like a Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat-style thing. The Raid 2, on the other hand, feels like it would be more suited to a more modern kind of game, since the world really opens up in that movie, and the action is a good deal more varied. It doesn’t feel as video-game-y as The Raid (2011), though, so that’s why the first movie is ultimately going here instead.
9
‘The Northman’ (2022)
There’s a real simplicity to The Northman, in terms of narrative, because it’s about one man’s quest for vengeance against his uncle, since when he was young, his uncle killed his father. It’s Hamlet, basically, or more accurately, Hamlet is basically the story that The Northman tells, since the legend of Amleth is what inspired Hamlet (the last letter of the former shifted to the start of the name, making the latter).
Also, the fantastical elements at play throughout The Northman feel like they could add a little flavor to the hypothetical gameplay of a game adaptation. There’d be a way to do it as an open-world game, or The Northman could also be a little linear, think like one of the God of War games, which are also intense, action-focused, often concerned with revenge (narratively), and have fantastical elements.
8
‘Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro’ (1979)
The first feature film Hayao Miyazaki ever directed, Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro, also feels like one of his most underrated. It’s likely his funniest film, and one of the more purely entertaining he’s ever made, so that helps it feel like it could make for a breezy and decently fun game (Miyazaki himself mightn’t love the idea of a movie of his becoming a game, if one had to guess, but this is all very much speculative and hypothetical).
If this were a game, you’d play as the titular thief, Lupin III, and one can imagine most of it taking place in and around the (also titular) castle. It’s an incredible location for the film, with so many different areas and rooms that keep getting revealed, so the idea of being able to explore it and engage in all sorts of puzzles and fight sequences throughout it, within a 3D action-adventure game, honestly could be a ton of fun, if done right.
7
‘Kill Bill’ (2003–2004)
With Kill Bill, you’ve got a revenge narrative, a little like The Northman, but The Bride (as she’s initially known) has a few other people she wants to kill before getting to Bill. It’s not so much like every person on her kill list would have a single level devoted to them, but you can imagine five parts of the overall game, with each target taking a couple of hours or so to fight one’s way toward and then take on.
That would be how you’d make it work as a single-player game. Sure, for the parts in Kill Bill: Vol. 2, a lot would have to be changed, especially if you wanted to keep an action focus throughout the whole game, seeing as that second volume, as a film, is a bit more dialogue-heavy and less explosive. You’d be cheapening the narrative, to some extent, but that’s what the movie would be for; the movie would still have the narrative. Throw in some more action for Vol. 2, even if it got kind of silly, and you could make this entire saga work pretty well as a heightened and very much not kid-friendly video game.
6
‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ (2015)
Now, there was a Mad Max game that came out in 2015, the same year as Mad Max: Fury Road, but it technically wasn’t a tie-in game, and so it still feels like Fury Road can be included here… just. It’s a bit of a borderline example, or something of a sneaky one, but also, like, come on. Mad Max: Fury Road is one of the most exciting action movies, arguably of all time, so it feels like it could be translated pretty well to a video game.
Whether it would have the same momentum as the movie is another thing altogether, since if you wanted to make this an action game rather than a racing one, it would be hard to ask the player to be involved in a chase 100% of the time. Some changes would have to be made, but if there was some way to do it so that at least some of the time (or when you felt like it), you could get into the same sorts of high-intensity, stunt-filled, and explosion-heavy chase sequences seen in the movie, then that could be both a literal and figurative blast.
5
‘Snowpiercer’ (2013)
Before, The Raid was mentioned as a movie with a scope that almost felt two-dimensional, but such a description probably applies to Snowpiercer even more, since the characters here do travel along horizontally, because there isn’t really any other direction to go. They’re situated at the back of a long train that houses what remains of humanity after a catastrophic (and basically world-ending) event. They’re treated as lesser passengers while everyone closer to the front lives in comparative luxury, so they start a revolution on board the train, fighting their way to the front.
Now, as to whether you could keep that sort of environment entertaining for more than a few hours? Maybe not, but if Snowpiercer weren’t a full-priced game, and it was done in a retro 2D/side-scroller style, it could work and prove worth playing. The narrative and pacing of the movie would be easy to maintain in a game, at least, owing to the confined setting and the relatively high amount of action already found in the film itself.
4
‘RRR’ (2022)
There are two clear ways RRR could be tackled and translated into a game. You could have it be a single-player game where you’re given control of both heroes at different points in the game, before they team up, a little like how the single-player portion of Grand Theft Auto V lets you switch between three protagonists. Or, the eventual duo that the two characters in RRR form could make it work as a co-op game.
Either way, one can imagine doing a great deal of fighting in an RRR video game, and since the movie was already over-the-top, and the two heroes were basically made of iron like so many video game characters are, the jump could indeed be made. The challenge would be making it more fun to play than RRR already is to watch, but in terms of game mechanics and set pieces, it’s already there, in the movie (and it would be a no-brainer to include a dance minigame, too).
3
‘Castle in the Sky’ (1986)
Another Miyazaki movie, and this one also happens to have the word “Castle” in the title, Castle in the Sky would make for a fun video game for many of the same reasons that Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro would. Castle in the Sky tells a story that ends up in another wild and fascinating location, here being a legendary floating castle, which is equally cool as the castle of Cagliostro.
Castle in the Sky most feels like a particularly beautiful open-world action-adventure game, or maybe something more like a role-playing one.
It’s there that Castle in the Sky most feels like a particularly beautiful open-world action-adventure game, or maybe something more like a role-playing one. You’d need a bit more of an area to explore than just the floating castle, but that feels like it could sustain quite a bit of engaging gameplay, and there are quite a few action sequences in the movie that would translate quite nicely into the video game medium.
2
‘Battle Royale’ (2000)
The elephant in the room here is that “battle royale” is a whole genre of games now, being named after Battle Royale, so there would be some serious competition, funnily enough, if Battle Royale became an official battle royale game. The movie is about high school students being forced to take part in a fight to the death on an island, while battle royale games throw players into an arena and force them to fight until one person is left standing.
It’s a bit of an obvious pick, really, owing to how popular battle royale games have become. Still, it’s funny to see it happen in this order, and without Battle Royale itself ever officially getting made into a video game (it was originally a novel, which led to the movie, and then it’s continued as a franchise through a manga series and a 2003 film sequel called Battle Royale II: Requiem).
1
‘Tenet’ (2020)
You’d need a designer on the same level as Christopher Nolan to make Tenet work as a video game, and there are some people out there who’d probably be willing to argue that Tenet doesn’t even work as a movie, in the first place. It’s Nolan’s densest and probably most confounding movie overall, with it being an action/thriller/spy/sci-fi movie about objects – and people – traveling back in time.
Getting the mechanics to work in a game, and allowing players to mess around with them… look, it would be so hard to pull off, and then the game itself, if it even worked, would likely also be difficult and confusing at times. But having a gameplay mechanic that involves playing around time in this way – and to the same extent as the movie – would be undoubtedly thrilling. It feels the least likely to ever happen, out of any of the films listed here, but it is perhaps the coolest to think about and try to conceive of, somehow, in your head.
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Jeremy Urquhart
Almontather Rassoul
