The Problem with Video Game Movies

The Hollywood machine has always turned to the adaptation to make an easy buck. Film adaptations of books and plays, such as Snow White and Hamlet were being made as early as 1913, and were crucial in realizing film as a profitable medium. These adaptations work on the basis of “pre-sold audiences”, as people who are familiar with the source material will see the film adaptation, either due to a loyalty to the material or to satisfy a morbid curiosity. Hollywood adaptations of literature have spawned some of cinema’s most beloved films, from the Shining to Harry Potter. So why is it that video games have gotten the short end of the stick when it comes to this cycle of adaptation? 

Harry Potter grossed a total of 9 billion dollars across 8 films, making it the third highest grossing franchise of all time, right behind Star Wars.

Video game movies aren’t bad in a financial sense. Recent attempts at these adaptations, such as Tomb Raider, Warcraft, and Rampage have proven to be able to make a profit and have even opened up the possibility of future installments. But what these adaptations lack compared to adaptations of literature or stageplays, is cultural staying power. Some of the most beloved films of all time are adaptations. Films like the Lord of the Rings, The Graduate, and the Godfather not only churned profits, but help to advance film as a medium and shaped the cultural landscape for years to come. However, following the two decades since the first video game adaptation, this genre of film has yet to break a 50/100 score on MetaCritic, and are doomed to fall out of the general consciousness and into the bargain bin. 

This failure to translate into film is especially surprising when considering the narrative revolution video games are currently experiencing. Video games have come a long way since the early days of Pong and Super Mario Brothers. It is no longer a medium defined by one’s ability to successfully utilize the game’s tools to complete mundane objectives. Series like Bioshock, Uncharted, and Red Dead Redemption prove that interactivity can play a large role on shaping and crafting narratives that offer immersive experiences that other mediums can not. This revolution in narrative form has elevated video games from mindless distraction into the realm of art, a notion that critics like Roger Ebert starkly opposed only years before. 

So why is it, in this golden age of video games, all attempts at adaptations result in these schlocky, cliched disasters? Some of these issues are not confined to video game adaptation, but adaptation as a whole. Issues like not understanding the thematic 

essence of the source material, restructuring the narrative to fit a tight 120 minutes, and certain aesthetic qualities that just couldn’t reasonably be translated to the screen. But the biggest reason that these adaptations fail, is that the film and video games are on completely opposite sides of the entertainment spectrum.

Red Dead Redemption 2 takes direct visual influence from some of the most revered Westerns of all time.

Watching a film is a passive experience. You pay the price of admission, you sit down in a dark theater, you watch the events of the narrative unfold for roughly two hours, and then you go home, absorbing what you just saw. The only thing a film requires of you is to be present. Most films want you to think about what you saw, but for even the most knuckleheaded of audience members, the film will continue to unfold in front of you, whether or not you want it to. This passiveness is the essence of film and dictates the narrative. It is neatly wrapped for you to consume, and no matter how many times you watch it, it will be the exact same. This is why adaptations of literature work so well on film. They offer similar narrative experiences that translate very easily from page to screen. While this isn’t the case for all literature, most literary tales can be condensed to a three act structure and be left unscathed. 

Video games are a completely different beast. Video games require an active audience participant, and shape their narrative experience around that activity. Take that same knucklehead and give him a controller, he won’t be able to make it past the title screen. Regardless of the genre of game, all video games require some sort of interactivity. Whether it be to take cover and shoot Pinkerton agents closing in on your camp, or to just hold the walk button as you traverse through a beautiful sandy vista. It’s this interaction that video games base the narrative experience on. Your choices and the way you interact with the game world shape your own enjoyment of the game. 

Take a game like Fallout: New Vegas, for example. New Vegas is a game lauded by critics and fans for its insane level of narrative freedom. You want to be a ruthless killer who will blow the head off of anyone who looks at you the wrong way? Go ahead. You want to be a charismatic doctor who can talk his way out of an army of super mutants who want to use your ribcage as a xylophone? It’s your game, do what you want. This level of interactivity and decision making and its effects on the narrative make the game so personal, that no two people will have similar experiences playing it. This ideology is the through line for video games, and it's an experience that can’t be mimicked in film form. The essence of film is rooted in its passivity, and filmmakers just 

can’t offer an experience that will be different for everyone. Directors like David Lynch or the Coen Brothers can craft a film that can be interpreted in many different ways, but the film itself doesn’t change shape when faced with new interpretations. Because of the limits of the medium, film just can’t feasibly offer the same level of personalized experience that a video game can. 

Fallout New Vegas offers a plethora of endings based on decisions made during crucial moments in the story, making each subsequent playthrough a different experience.

But just because films can’t replicate the video game experience 1:1, it doesn’t mean that there is nothing about a game that can be translated. Recent triple A games such as God of War and Red Dead Redemption 2 take inspiration from film, and offer narratives stylized in cinematic way. Obviously, when taking a page from film, game developers had to leave out some of the formal elements that just wouldn’t transfer over. Red Dead Redemption 2 is a 60-70 hour experience, so obviously it doesn’t come anywhere close to following typical film structure. But what it does do is immerse the player in the world of the wild west, using the iconography and visual style established in films such as The Good the Bad and the Ugly, and the Searchers to make the game world align to our own interpretations. Red Dead Redemption 2 utilizes an Ennio Morricone inspired score, a gruff antihero protagonist in the vein Clint Eastwood, and a multitude of environments and settings inspired by westerns such as McCabe and Mrs. Miller and The Outlaw Josey Wales. The game takes the formal elements of these films, and infuses it with the bells and whistles of 3rd person shooters to create a believable game world it can use to tell its story. It’s this blending of film and video game elements that make more cinematic games like Red Dead Redemption 2 and God of War so successful. 

So what can film learn from this? While gaming as a medium will never be able to be fully translated to film due to its reliance on an active audience, what film can do is achieve the tone and thematic essence of games and their stories. No film studio will ever be able to provide that same blood boiling adrenaline you get when you snap an ogre’s neck as Kratos, but what they can replicate is the beautiful father and son story of Kratos and Atreus. Film won’t be able to capture the same sense of pride and accomplishment you get when defeating your first Big Daddy, but they can capture the feeling of awe and terror when you make that first descent into Rapture. Film will never be able to accurately portray the satisfaction of mowing down rows of cowboys with Dead Eye, but it can capture that somber moment before John Marston opens those barn doors. Just as games took the essence of film and twisted it to fit their medium, 

film can take the essence of games and shape it to make a more streamlined narrative fit for the big screen. All it takes is a filmmaker that is willing to really analyze these games, and understand why we like them so much. 

Games like 2018’s “God of War” are working to blend the expression of interactivity with the nuance of performance, to craft a narrative experience unlike anything in film.