Cyberpunk 2077, last year's most talked about title, didn’t start as a video game. The original Cyberpunk was a tabletop game role-playing game created by Mike Pondsmith and R. Talsorian Games. While tabletop games and video games are both types of games, their unique differences present many challenges when adapting one into the other.
So, imagine the challenge of adapting an interactive, entertainment-driven medium like video games into a passive, narrative-driven medium like movies or TV shows. Once again, Cyberpunk shows the way. In 2022, Netflix and famed anime team Studio Trigger will adapt Cyberpunk 2077 into an animated series called Cyberpunk: EdgerunnersCyberpunk: Edgerunners. While previous video game adaptations missed far more often than they hit, we have hope that Cyberpunk: Edgerunners will continue the video game adaptation renaissance we’ve seen in recent years. What caused this shift? Companies realized that video games work better as TV shows than movies.
Channel Surfing
Netflix produces some of the finest video game-based television. Although The Witcher is technically based on Andrzej Sapkowski’s series of fantasy novels, its video game adaptation (also by Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red) gave the brand the popularity it needed to earn a prestige, live-action streaming show starring Henry Cavill. On the animated end, the Castlevania anime takes the spooky NES romp about slaying monsters in Dracula’s castle and turns it into a medieval, gothic melodrama that features rich characters and killer fight scenes.
Other channels have their own video game television projects in the works, too. Fans praise The Last of Us for its intimate, brutal, and realistic cinematic storytelling, at least in comparison to other video games. Soon you can watch its story with actual people when it becomes an HBO show. I wonder if the corporate overlords at Amazon, a company built to withstand a real nuclear war, realize the irony of adapting the post-apocalyptic Fallout franchise for television with the creators of Westworld. Eventually, Microsoft and Showtime will manage to make a Halo TV show. They already have a cast, including Pablo Schreiber, Natascha McElhone, and Bokeem Woodbine.
Instead of adapting one video game, CBS All Access turned a gaming history book into a TV documentary series with Console Wars. Similarly, Apple TV+’s Mythic Quest turns video game development into a surprisingly great workplace comedy, with some help from Ubisoft.
Video game TV shows and movies can coexist. Within the next few years (COVID-19 notwithstanding), Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil, and Uncharted (starring Tom Holland!), will come to the big screen. Still, the poor history of video game movies leaves us more skeptical about the quality of these films compared to their TV counterparts. You can’t wash away bad memories of the godawful live-action Assassin’s Creed, Doom, and Super Mario Bros. movies. While writing this column, the live-action Milla Jovovich Monster Hunter movie got released...and it’s terrible.
Even the better video game movies, like Prince of Persia and Silent Hill, are only decent compared to other, real movies. Paul W.S. Anderson’s original Mortal Kombat and Resident Evil movies have their schlocky charms. Still, I would rather watch the Mortal Kombat: Legacy web series at this point, and I’m more excited about Netflix’s upcoming Resident Evil show starring Wesker’s inexplicable children. Meanwhile, Pokemon exists in its own higher universe where it can inspire quality games, anime, trading cards, and the most mind-blowing neon kids’ movie since Speed Racer.
Best Episode Ever
What makes video games such a tough nut for filmmakers to crack? Why have movie adaptations for games as beloved as Gears of War, Minecraft, and Shadow of the Colossus languished in development hell for years? Gaming’s natural storytelling rhythms map better to an episodic format. Many brief, interactive story indie games are basically playable short films, but your average mainstream game is a multi-hour affair broken up into levels/chapters. That sounds like TV. That also sounds like books, a medium that also makes for compelling prestige TV adaptations with run-times long enough to fully dive into their depths.
Thanks to studios’ desire for critical acclaim and breakthroughs in special effects, TV shows look better than ever. The MandalorianThe Mandalorian uses Unreal Engine, the same video game engine behind Fortnite, to power its virtual Star Wars sets. However, when you embrace TV, you also embrace lower budgets. Early Witcher set photos scared us with bad wigs and chintzy costumes. The animation for Netflix’s upcoming Cuphead cartoon does not have nearly as much detailed 1930s flair as the hand-drawn game itself. Remember the ironically-incredible and actually-horrifying CGI Donkey Kong Country cartoon?
Some video games take us to such varied, vast, and visually imaginative worlds that they can only be accurately realized on film screens with film budgets. Imagine Rampage with a less convincing giant gorilla and giant crocodile. Metal Gear Solid has seasons and seasons worth of plot, but I’ll gladly take a streamlined version if we get to see movie star Oscar Isaac play Solid Snake in a live-action adaptation with the scale and production value of Hideo Kojima’s wildest cinematic dreams. Personally, I’ll take a good movie over a good TV show any time. It’s just a tougher proposition for games.
Must-Play TV
Video games already now exist as a major force in entertainment and culture. They don’t need to become movies or TV shows to be seen as legitimate. Still, sometimes you love a story so much you want to see it reinvented and reinterpreted. Cyberpunk made the leap from tabletop game to video game, and (bugs aside) excited gamers agree that was a smart choice. Who knows what fantastic future entertainment awaits us when today’s great video game becomes tomorrow’s excellent TV show. Netflix is making a new Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon, so anything is possible.