The TV adaptation of Halo has become a huge success, and while some fans would have preferred a movie, Master Chief actor Pablo Schreiber thinks it works better as a series. The actor believes the television format allows for more “rich storytelling,” and there’s certainly a lot more time to develop the characters in a way that’s faithful to the source material.
And after the show’s success, Redditors can’t help but think of other possibilities when it comes to adapting beloved video games into entertaining and detailed TV shows. Between a B-movie-inspired comedy sci-fi, an adaptation that could revive the 2000s street racing fad, and some all-time greats, networks are ignoring so much original material.
Heavy Rain (2010)
Jokrtothethief reckons Heavy Rain would make for a great TV show. The adventure game sees players attempting to solve the mystery of the Origami Killer, and it screams, “Netflix crime drama.” As limited series are becoming more popular than ever with streaming platforms making exclusive miniseries, Heavy Rain is the perfect candidate to get an adaptation.
However, the Redditor admits, “It kind of was a TV series though.” Though Heavy Rain was a console game, it does feel more like an interactive movie or TV show, as players wander around locations and press a button to inspect certain props.
Max Payne (2001)
Max Payne follows the titular character, a fugitive undercover cop, as he attempts to get vengeance for his family’s death. Hollywood already attempted to adapt Max Payne into a movie, and it, unfortunately, failed miserably. But A deleted user thinks the game would make for great TV, “Max Payne would be great if they concentrated on the original characters and story, and not completely f***** it up like they did the movie.”
One of the biggest takeaways from the movie was its gothic aesthetic and the supernatural elements, and there hasn’t been anything like that in the TV format since Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A Max Payne TV series could have the feel of the Buffy spin-off, Angel, which is a much darker series and sees the vampire start a private detective firm.
Bioshock (2007)
Bioshock is about a lost and abandoned underwater city called Rapture, and Jack, the playable character, attempts to understand his mysterious connection with it. The game features one of the densest and most thorough storytelling ever for a video game, and the intrigue and a shocking twist ending rival anything found in television or film.
That would undoubtedly make for a riveting miniseries, but RedRanger9001 has another idea. The Redditor wants to see a prequel to the first game in the series, “Like, follow the people of Rapture as the class tension rises. I feel like that would make a cool four seasons.” To see how Rapture came to be would make for one of the most epic sci-fi shows on TV.
God Of War (2018)
It isn’t exactly one specific game in the God of War series that LegenBerry87 thinks would make for a great TV show, but the whole IP. The Redditor posits, “Every season could have a new god he kills, leading up to Zeus.” That kind of formula, where each season features a new big bad until it reaches the hero’s arch-nemesis at the very end of the series, isn’t all that popular anymore, but it could work perfectly with the Greek mythology game.
But while that’s a great idea, God of War lends itself better to the movie format, especially as TV-standard special effects would be way too small of a scale for a series about Greek gods and huge beasts. That’s something that’s made for the big screen. And coming off the heels of the epic, fantastical, and bloody Viking movie The Northman, the game would make a great Robert Eggers-directed movie.
The Hitman Series (2000-2021)
Just as is the case with Max Payne, Hollywood has failed to make a successful Hitman movie not once but twice. The reason why those movies failed was that they completely misunderstood what made the games great. 20th Century Fox didn’t pick up on how the Hitman games are full of humor, whether it’s Agent 47’s face-value approach to humanity and his lack of emotion, or all of the over-the-top disguises he uses to get closer to his targets.
As Gustavort believes, all of these things could make for an endlessly entertaining TV series where each episode has a different target and different theme. There are so many great Hitman games full of unique levels that the show can take inspiration from, such as English manors, F1 race tracks, top-secret laboratories, and so many others.
The Sims (2000)
Salty_Stripping wants to see The Sims adapted into a TV show, and while it’s hard to imagine that working because it’s simply a life simulation game, they have an intriguing idea. The Redditor posits, “I think a Sims movie where the characters find out they’re being controlled would be an interesting thriller.”
That premise sounds interesting, but it also sounds extremely familiar. The idea was the very premise of 2021’s Free Guy, in which a non-player character realizes that he’s part of a video game. However, it wasn’t a thriller, and applying that genre to The Sims sounds like an incredible Stepford Wives and Free Guy hybrid that would be great under David Cronenberg’s direction.
Destroy All Humans! (2005)
Jaketocake wants to see Destroy All Humans! get the TV adaptation treatment. Destroy All Humans! is such a unique game, as it’s set in the 1950s and it sees gamers playing as the villain, as the playable character is Crypto, an alien who is sent to harvest human brains. Few TV sitcoms are from the perspective of the villain, so an adaptation of the game could be unique in the television landscape.
The game makes fun of the time period’s cliches, and the characters are hilarious caricatures of farmers and carnies of the time. There’s so much material that a series would be so easy to create with what already exists. Even the background conversations and dialogue between non-player characters are golden and full of hilarious one-liners.
Need For Speed: Most Wanted (2005)
WeAllHaveOurMoments wants to see Need For Speed get a TV series. The Redditor thinks, “Episode formula could be whichever rival club you race this week, whichever heist getaway, with the ever-present heat of the law being a factor.” The Reddit user doesn’t mention which specific game in the Need For Speed series should be adapted, as each game is wildly different, but Need For Speed: Most Wanted best fits their description of the show.
The game features all of the street racing and customization of the Underground series, but it takes it to another level with police constantly being on the player’s tail. It’d make for a great time capsule and have a very early 2000s vibe, and as the Fast and Furious movie series is veering further and further away from cars with each movie, a lot of 2000s kids would kill to see this kind of show.
Kingdom Hearts (2002)
Kingdom Hearts is an action role-playing game and a collaboration between Square Enix and Disney, meaning that many of both of their most iconic characters are playable in the game. Mor-Rioghan thinks that it’d make for a great animated series, and they’re “surprised Disney hasn’t made a TV series out of Kingdom Hearts yet.”
However, it was reported by IGN in 2020 that a Disney+ series of the game was on its way. Unfortunately, nothing has come of it yet and there haven’t been any other updates since. So it’s safe to say that the adaptation is most likely stuck in development hell.
Half-Life 2 (2004)
Like Bioshock, the Half-Life series tells such an inventive and engaging story that it rivals anything on TV or in movies, and there’s even more mystique. The series is wrapped up in so much mystery, such as who the G-Man really is and what’s inside the Borealis, the icebreaker that went randomly disappeared.
Strozykoski thinks the story, specifically the second game in the series, is begging for a TV adaptation, “but from the perspective of everyday resistance fighters.” That perspective is a smart choice, as the playable and main character of the series, Gordon Freeman, is completely silent in every game.
