Thoughts on the rise of video game movie adaptations.

Over the last few years, there’s been speculation that Video Game Movie adaptations may become the next big thing in the movie industry. Game adaptations have existed for a long time, but sure enough, the number of video game movies has noticeably increased in the last few years: Uncharted, Tomb Raider, Assassin’s Creed and many, many more.

The real watershed moment was the Super Mario Bros. movie, which made $1.36 billion. Naturally, movie studios want to emulate this success with their own video game adaptations. They will be disappointed in this. Mario made that much because it’s Mario. Video Games are extremely popular, but no other gaming IP is on Mario’s level.

That said, there have been other successful video game movies (commercially, anyway). The surprisingly star-studded Sonic movies have had a lot of success. They’re currently working on the 4th instalment and an equally star-studded spin-off TV show. The Minecraft movie also made a ton of money. (The real secret to the video game movie, going by Minecraft and Mario, is to cast Jack Black.)

The issue, of course, and the reason this is worth talking about, is that video game movies are nearly always terrible. Even the Mario movie, the most successful video game movie ever, was kind of terrible. (I can’t believe I’m saying this about a kid’s film that thousands of parents are likely made to watch over and over again, but the Mario movie could have benefited from being longer. They rushed past too much stuff.)

With certain gaming IPs, it doesn’t really matter if they’re bad. The Mario movie didn’t need to be good (and I don’t think anyone was seriously expecting it to be). It just needed to be a Mario movie. The film was a novelty (albeit a billion-dollar novelty). It just needed to be faithful to the games in a way that made gamers happy. You would think that’s a low bar, but the 1993 Mario movie failed on this count.

Minecraft, likewise, didn’t need to be good. And it’s not good. It’s dreadful. Even the fictional characters in the movie seem to know that it’s dreadful. But again, that doesn’t matter. It wasn’t really made to be good. It was made, primarily, to appeal to anyone who grew up playing Minecraft. And on that, it succeeded. Cinema audiences got really into it: clapping and cheering at every reference. (I grew up playing Minecraft and I had a great time.)

But only certain gaming franchises can rely on nostalgia for their movie adaptations. Uncharted, Tomb Raider and Assassin’s Creed for instance, mentioned at the start, are popular games. But their film adaptations are bad, and they don’t have the cult status that allows them to be bad.

In other words, if it’s not an immensely popular and nostalgic gaming franchise, like Mario, Sonic or Minecraft, the film adaptation does need to be good. And, again, this is almost never the case. Hollywood doesn’t seem to realise this. Instead, they saw Mario make a billion dollars+ and thought, “ah ha, what other games can we adapt?”

Even Split Fiction is getting an adaptation. Split Fiction looks like a great game by a very talented development team, but it was only released in March 2025. And it’s already getting an adaptation? That’s bonkers. It has had no time to garner a fan base or build up nostalgia.

They’re usually bad

Why is it that video game adaptations are nearly always bad?

It’s difficult to say. There isn’t a single type of video game. Games have the standard fiction genres: Sci-Fi, fantasy, horror, etc. And they combine that with a vast array of gaming-specific genres: 3D platformers, RPGs, Metroidvanias, etc. So each adaptation will have its own specific challenges to overcome. This may be the problem. Hollywood executives like money-printing formulas (looking at you, Marvel), but video game adaptations defy simplistic formulations.

It likely has something to do with form as well. Different stories are suited to different media; moving them into a different mediums tends to diminish them. Alfred Hitchcock refused to adapt any novel that he viewed as a masterpiece. Those novels, he believed, had found the perfect form for their story. A film adaption would be a downgrade.

Some video games have almost no story (Mario), others have a ton of story (every RPG). But regardless of how much story they have, the video game medium is a specific way of telling that story; there’s no medium like it. Games are longer than films and completely interactive; the player is part of the story. It’s also the one form that can (sort of) get away with lore dumps.

Most stories have to sprinkle the lore throughout the story and should, usually, cut anything that’s not essential. But video games can teach the player a huge amount of lore by spreading it throughout the world and making discovery an interactive element.

Many games straight up have quests or side missions where the player goes looking for lore dumps: books and ancient scrolls. The interactive element makes the lore dump a reward for doing something fun. And players who don’t care can skip it.

It’s not surprising that Hollywood has a difficult time adapting this.

Good Adaptations

In fairness, there are some good video game adaptations. Namely, The Last of Us and Fallout. These are exceptions that prove the rule.

Firstly, these are TV shows rather than films. They have more time to explore the often long and complex details of the story without being ham-fisted or glossing over stuff, as video game movies often do. Secondly, their source material is uniquely suited to adaptation.

The Last of Us, for instance, is an unusually story-focused game. It’s a great game (don’t get me wrong) but it’s oriented chiefly around a powerful yet reasonably straightforward story within an otherwise fairly standard Zombie apocalypse setting. Adapting it for a TV show must have been comparatively easy.

Conversely, the Fallout games are known chiefly for their environmental storytelling and constant side quests. The TV adaptation didn’t use any of the existing stories or characters (which aren’t really the point of the games). Instead, it created a new cast of characters, designed for TV, and then placed them in the world of Fallout. The TV format also afforded them adequate time to explore the environment and go on side quests.

Most video game adaptations don’t have these luxuries, and capturing the feel of a game is often difficult due to video game-exclusive genres. How do you communicate the feel of an interactive 2D platformer in a movie? You can’t.

Hence, most adaptations are bad. And, again, most adaptations don’t have the nostalgic cult status necessary for people to look past them being bad.

And since they’re nearly always bad, it’s a bit of a mystery that Hollywood is pouring more and more money into them, at least on the surface.

Hollywood’s Stagnation

Game developers have a clear motive for adaptations. The films are basically feature-length ads for their games. A sort of inversion of the promotional movie tie-in games that dominated the 2000s.

The film industry’s motives probably have something to do with the general creative stagnation of the film industry.

It’s becoming harder and harder to make money in the film industry (one of the first posts I ever made was about this). The collapse in DVD sales (which Matt Damon famously talked about) is part of this. The result has been risk-averse executives. They’d rather stick to tried and tested formulas than risk anything new.

Until recently, they leant on superhero movies (and other soulless franchises). But with the MCU having obviously run out of steam, and other superhero franchises never getting off the ground, movie executives have now gone in search of other cash cows.

The video game industry certainly has its problems, but it still affords writers and storytellers a greater level of creative freedom than the movie industry. And with its vast array of proven and popular stories and characters, with pre-existing fan bases, Hollywood executives seem to view this as a treasure trove of financially low-risk storytelling.

To some extent, that’s good. Since video games cover a vast array of story genres (Sci-Fi, fantasy, horror, etc.), an adaptations craze will create a greater range of big-budget movies genres. It won’t just be superhero movies anymore.

This also undermines the monopoly trends that have been developing in the movie industry: Disney buying up every popular franchise and milking them to oblivion.

Video Game studios seem take greater care of their franchises and characters. There are exceptions but they allow more narrative freedom and their stories seem more likely to end (probably because they’re more focused on gameplay than narrative). They probably won’t let Hollywood milk their IPs.

The YouTuber Arlo recently joked that even if the Mario sequel (rumoured to be called Mario World) makes a billion dollars, Nintendo may very feasibly say, “Nah, we don’t want to make another one.” It sounds bonkers, especially from the film industry’s point of view. But that would be in character for Nintendo. It doesn’t seem likely, but it wouldn’t be surprising.

Final Thought

For all those silver linings, Video Game adaptations are usually bad. They might even become a poisoned chalice for the film industry that, ultimately, turns away audiences.

Of course, it is conceivable that the film industry will eventually figure out how to make a good video game movie, without relying on nostalgia (just cast Jack Black in a leading role). The greater range of movie genres that emerges would certainly be a plus.

Nevertheless, it would be better if the film industry started making and telling its own stories again. If it stopped relying on soulless formulas, franchises and adaptations, and actually allowed their writers and directors to have some creative freedom.

That probably won’t happen anytime soon (due to the growing financial risks involved). But when the video game movie craze runs out of steam, just as Marvel has, who knows what the film industry will do next?

-Dexter