In recent years, we have seen several successful game adaptations in the form of TV series. Among them, we can distinguish two different approaches. One, the result of which is “The Last of Us”, focuses on retelling the plot known from the game. The second one, like “Arcane” and “Cyberpunk: Edgerunners”, uses the world created for the video game to tell its own story. As a supporter of the second approach, I decided to look for a few additional examples that would be perfect for this purpose.
If, when adapting a game, the creators of a film or series aim to expand the world presented, they gain a lot of creative freedom. They can then focus on world-creating elements, presenting their own, original story. This approach may be interesting both from the perspective of players familiar with the original and completely new recipients. People who are interested in the world they are learning about may be more willing to buy an adapted product. That's what happened to me – after watching the animated Cyberpunk, I immediately bought the game from CD Projekt Red.
David Martinez został legendą Night City
It is also an excuse to show the lore more broadly or look at events from a completely different perspective. Use of game characters allowed the “Arcane” scriptwriters to see Jinx as a lost girl in whom madness slowly sprouted.. We learned the origins of the image of the blue-haired heroine that we have the opportunity to see while playing League of Legends. In the case of David Martinez, Night City was shown from the perspective of a young boy who, despite his and his mother's best efforts, lost everything due to the rules imposed by corporations. What else lends itself to such an ambitious adaptation?
Mass Effect
The story centered on Commander Shepard is an epic space opera in which there was no room for an ordinary inhabitant of the Citadel or any of the planets visited by the Normandy crew. Of course, numerous side quests allowed us to show interesting threads of the creatures we encountered, but we had the opportunity to observe all these events only from the perspective of the main character. What's more, most of the planets we visit were discovered during or just after intense events, for example after the attack of one of the numerous Reaper puppets.
Or maybe a story focused on the actions of the Illusive Man and Cerberus?
In this rich universe, there would certainly be room for an intimate story enclosed in one season of the series, in which a Citadel officer would have to solve the mystery of contraband smuggling amid rising tensions over rumors about the return of an ancient, destructive race. Mass Effect also has a number of well-written companions, each of whom would be perfect as the protagonist of a story taking place before the trilogy or in parallel with one of its parts.
Detroit: Become Human
A cyberpunk vision of the future in which androids take over most of the basic work previously performed by humans is an interesting motif in which the way of presenting a social problem is very broad. Quantic Dream studio proposed the perspective of three androids whose fates had a direct impact on the further lives of not only themselves, but also the entire society, which was forced to find itself in a reality dependent on the player's choices. The story focused on androids also had a subplot on which the series' plot could be based.
The story told in Detroit: Become Human is a drama not only of androids, but also of people lost in a new reality
Playing with convention would allow us to tell a story similar to the problem of Todd Williams, the owner of Kara, one of the three playable characters. Todd has been learning new jobs over the years as his previous jobs are replaced by android workers. A story based this time on a human perspective, in which the labor market is dangerously shrinking, would shed additional light on the aversion to technologies that marginalize the work of human hands. This comment could be surprisingly accurate in the era of growing artificial intelligence capabilities that we are seeing in our times.
Control
The Control universe created by Remedy studio is a paranormal rollercoaster whose central point is the Federal Bureau of Control. This world combines the events of both the title Control and the two parts of Alan Wake. Among the numerous supernatural events that we learned about while visiting the Oldest Residence, the setting of the game, we could find many inspirations for the plot of a potential series.
The tangled world of Control could hold a few more paranormal stories
In an environment so flexible for new stories, we could count on an original approach – especially since Remedy has a natural talent for blurring the boundaries between different mediawhich was presented, among others, in Alan Wake 2. For example, I am thinking of an anthology comparable to “Black Mirror”, this time in a horror atmosphere, in which each subsequent episode would be based on a different case that agents of the Federal Audit Office would have to investigate.
Helldivers
All the examples of games I mentioned contain a rich plot on which we can base any story we choose. All you need to do is take one of the threads and create a work based on it, adapting the world presented for the needs of a TV series or a movie. The online Helldivers 2 has only a rudimentary plot background, which, however, encouraged me to refresh the movie “Starship Troopers”. After an intense game with my friends, for a moment I wanted to feel the exaggerated atmosphere similar to the ideas promoted by Super Earth.
For democracy!
Judging by the significant increase in interest in the classic film, I wasn't the only one who came up with this idea – and rightly so, because it's a great production, even after such a long time. The Helldivers brand is undoubtedly a tribute to the sci-fi genre, which, apart from the above-mentioned “Space Troopers”, also contains echoes of, for example, “Terminator”. I bet dollars to nuts that a modern film about Super Earth, driven by such great inspirations from classic cinema, would find an audience not only among gamers.
HBO's The Last of Us got it right too
Adapting games to large and small screens hasn't been going well for years. Today, however, after the undoubted successes in this field, I want more. I had a great time watching The Last of Us, but I had the impression that most of the discussion on the Internet focused on comparing scenes from the series with the game, comparing them – sometimes almost frame by frame – with the original. It was similar with the selection of actors and changes in the script. But the series does not have to recreate the game one hundred percent, as HBO effectively demonstrated.
The series' writers showed respect for both the history and the entire world presented, while surprising even fans familiar with the adventures of Ellie and Joel. Yes, some people may find fault with changes compared to the original, such as the method of infection using flagella from the mouth or the infected communicating using roots underground. These differences, however, were not intended to flatten or “fix” the source material, but only to adapt the lore to the needs of the new medium.
Bill's story was certainly bold, but successful
Knowing the plot of the original, I watched with interest the threads of the series, which expanded my knowledge about the world. Such works are also needed and I think that this approach in game adaptations makes sense, because I could finally enjoy the story of The Last of Us with my wife, and the excellent story could also be seen by other audiences unfamiliar with the original. However, I would be happy to learn even more, as I had the opportunity to do so in the episode about Bill, titled “Until the Last Days”, and in the opening scenes of the first episodes of the series, showing the origins of the pandemic. It's a pity that there weren't more such manifestations of the writers' creativity and imagination.
Regardless of whether the creators of subsequent game adaptations decide to enrich the source material with new stories or show the same plot again, I hope that these will be successful productions. It's all about having fun.