The success of HBO’s The Last of Us is likely to send producers scrambling to replicate the process with another hot ticket Triple A gaming franchise. While I’m always excited to see gaming get its due in other media, interactive entertainment doesn’t always translate well onto the screen. Here are five gaming franchises that would be absolute disasters if someone tried to make the next Last of Us out of them.
Bioshock
People have been talking about a Bioshock film since 2009, with Gore Verbinski apparently set to helm it. Lately, Netflix is saying they’ll take a stab at bringing the underwater city of Rapture to life. Even though it’s one of my favorite games of all time, I hope this falls apart.
Bioshock is far more about an aesthetic than a workable plot, and a huge part of the game’s lore has always been pretty dumb. Add in a fairly lackluster cast of characters (except Sander Cohen) and a silent protagonist, and you just don’t have the bones for a good adaption. Plus, building Rapture is going to be prohibitively expensive to do right, meaning that when it tanks, it is going to take a lot of other shows down with it in a budget crash. Remember, even original developer Irrational Games couldn’t afford to keep making Bioshock. It’s hard to imagine a studio doing any better.
God of War
If any game feels like it would make a great series in the style of The Last of Us, it’s God of War. Certainly Amazon seems to think so. They’re heading forward with a show helmed by Rafe Judkins. After all, it’s another (kind of) post-apocalyptic story of a haunted, brutal man and his child battling monsters and being sad.
That’s the problem: The Last of Us already exists. Pulling the same act in a sword (well, axe) and sorcery setting isn’t necessarily bad, but Amazon’s take is likely to just be a more expensive version of The Last of Us. Even though the Norse saga has trimmed down the number of giant monsters from the days when Kratos was killing his way through the Greek pantheon, you’re talking some very expensive CGI when Jörmungandr and the Valkyries get on screen. It’s certainly doable, but Amazon has been taking big risks with Rings of Power and Wheel of Time while allegedly still losing out in investors’ minds to House of the Dragon.
The Legend of Zelda
Rumors of a Netflix Legend of Zelda series have been circulating for a couple of years. As one of the most beloved video game franchises of all time, it’s always been high on the list of things fans would love to see, which is why so many fan films exist until Nintendo shuts them down hard.
Like the others on this list, Zelda would be very expensive, but those fan films prove it’s more doable on a budget than most people realize. However, it’s not Hyrule that would hold a show back; it’s Link. The Hero of Time is the blankest of all the classic Nintendo protagonists, often lacking any real personality. Even in Breath of the Wild, Link’s defining characteristic is how he’s cut himself off from many emotions to become a stronger warrior. Most of what we see of his personality is actually just told to us by Zelda.
Link cannot be the center of a show without fundamentally altering the character, and fans won’t stand for that.
Any From Software Game
Sony is possibly thinking about a Bloodborne series, and Namco Bandai has outright stated that Elden Ring will move into other media. As the Soulsborne is maybe the most defining video game genre of the last ten years, what could possibly go wrong? Especially Bloodborne, which could cut costs considerably by scaling down the monsters in size and filming in England.
Look, as someone who has watched hundreds of hours of lore videos from Bloodborne and Elden Ring (the latter of which involved story work by George R. R. Martin), I fully admit all the pieces are there for something epic. The problem is that the ambiguity of the lore is what keeps them compelling. We don’t know the history of the Tarnished of No Renown or the Hunter. The exact details of many of the games events are purposefully left hazy to keep things dreamlike and open to interpretation.
That’s not impossible to do with a TV series. Legion proves it can work, but the most likely scenario is a bunch of writers who set things in stone the audience would much prefer remained up in the air. Without the brutal, fluid gameplay to fill in the gaps, a show is just going to fall flat.
Dead Space
If zombies on land work, why not zombies in space!? After all, the best Friday the 13th film is Jason X (don’t email me. I know I’m right). If The Last of Us can do it, so can Dead Space, and dark corridors are cheap.
Dead Space is almost perfect for a show, but the main problem is no one seems to know what to do with the bloody thing. The first game is an absolute classic, but everything since then, including this year’s remake, is a mess. Every time someone has tried to expand Dead Space beyond its tight, narrow premise and setting, it has gotten goofy and unwieldy. The story is flimsy, the characters thin, and half of the appeal of the game was being able to stomp monsters into goo. It’s not enough for prestige TV, pretty as the fial product would probably be.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2023.
