From Halo and Resident Evil to emo apocalypse thriller The Last of Us, video game adaptations are storming our screens. Is this a fast-track to quality TV – or a cynical cash grab?
For a long time, it was an accepted truth that video games just didn’t work on screen. Remember the quasi-cyberpunk 1993 Super Mario movie, starring Dennis Hopper? It was so bad that basically everyone involved with it has disavowed it. And TV? Kids of the 90s will remember the incredibly annoying voice of Sonic the Hedgehog on Saturday morning TV – or the permanent repeats of the Pokémon anime series – but other than that, the entertainment world never took games seriously.
Now, though, things are different. In the past few years, Hollywood has managed to produce a few video-game films that are actually watchable, such as Detective Pikachu and Sonic the Hedgehog 2. And barely a week goes by without an announcement that another game has been picked up for TV – all of which are aimed at adults, not kids or tweens. There’s a science fiction series based on Halo, the first-person shooter from 2001 whose original fans are well into their 30s and beyond. There’s a Netflix adaptation of Assassin’s Creed, the historical action game that makes you run around in elaborate simulations of ancient Egypt or Renaissance Italy – which adds to the streaming giant’s 15-rated take on The Witcher, starring Henry Cavill, which is almost as filthy and violent as its source material. And in an Inception-level example of games and TV inspiring each other, there’s even a series based on Cuphead, a well-loved but niche run-and-gun game that is itself a homage to early 1920s cartoons.
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