While video game adaptations have been on the rise for some time, 2024 could be one of the busiest years yet. Boasting Prime Video FalloutLike a Dragon, and Secret Level as Netflix announced to Arcane last season and Tomb Raider: Legend of Lara Croft. Sonic 3 is currently killing it in theaters, and Borderlands…well, it's out. And that's just the high-profile stuff: you either forgot or didn't know that Dead Cells An animated series ended in France, or Paramount released a show for Ark: Survival Evolved, which is surprisingly fun.
It's safe to say that Hollywood is now hoping that video games can become a new revenue driver, especially since some of these shows have garnered major awards. nominations and win and 2023's Mario the film grossed over $1 billion in theaters. In fact, MarioIts success has led some to wonder if game adaptations will replace superhero movies as the new hotness, seemingly losing their luster before the Deadpool and Wolverine this past summer. As for how 2025 will test if superheroes are truly back, video games have some heavy hitters that could determine what happens in the coming years: at the time of writing, we know to expect The Devil May Cry adaptation and new times for The Last of Us and Castlevania: Nocturneplus MinecraftMortal Kombat 2, Five Nights at Freddy's 2, and Until Dawn on the big screen. Other previously announced adaptations for Watch Dogs, Among Us, and what else is currently TBD, if they even exist at all.
In some ways, things haven't changed; go back a decade or two, and you'll see plenty of games with movies or TV shows announced that ultimately went nowhere. (Case in point, we learned in November of a movie based on Splinter Cell games—first announced waaaaaaay back 2005— is dead.) There's always the chance that Netflix doesn't do those Gears of War o BioShock movies it previously announced, as well as Capcom Street Fighter movies, and so on, because that's just the way things are sometimes. But what? cow give the new revival of game adaptations a better overall chance are some developers more involved this time around; Nintendo is actively involved in Mario movie and its coming soon Legend of Zelda movieCapcom indeed built The Devil May Cry with that show's executive producer Adi Shankar, and Naughty Dog's studio head Neil Druckmann directed and wrote several episodes of It's too late for us series. Having developers in the kitchen is not important, but as a guiding hand for Riot Games Arcane presented, it could be an extra sell to fans of those games to know that the creatives behind them aren't just sitting back and cashing a check.
Another way in which game adaptations have changed? Many games benefit from these on the small or silver screen. both Fallout and It's too late for us famously saw spikes in sales and player numbers after their respective jumps into a new medium, and even Borderlands benefited, despite its film being a massive non-starter. Nope per developer is completely approaching the effect of these expansions, but what results show that everyone can win from it. This is something that game publishers have picked up on—Shadow generations got a DLC pack featuring Keanu Reeves voicing the antihero hedgehog as he does in Sonic 3and Epic Games released character skins for Unreal Tournament in Fortnite before the episode of the long-dormant shooter in Secret Level.
Making games takes a lot of time these days, and as the number of game adaptations grows, they will both play off of each other. Some Secret Level episodes dedicated to games that have recently come out or won't be out for several years; its divisive, sci-fi horror-themed episode for Pac-Man became a surprise lead-in for next year's action-adventure title Shadow Labyrinth. In October, Sony released a remake for Until Dawn which seems to be languishing in sales, but will likely gain more traction when its movie hits in April 2025 (or whenever it gets its first trailer). By the same token, it's easy to imagine that Naughty Dog has spent the last five years remaking both It's too late for us games so viewers of the show will shell out more than $60 or $70 to see how Ellie and Joel's stories play out (and differently) in video game form. And knowing Nintendo, it probably won't have a Mario game or three outright made to go together 2026's Mario moviebut it sure can't hurt to have those, right?
As is the case with superhero movies, game adaptations will go through a period of trial and error as developers and Hollywood try to find some kind of happy place. It won't go away without its losses—right now, it's not entirely clear whether Riot will keep its promise Arcane follow-ups, and this is equally telling Castlevania: Nocturne directors Sam and Adam Diets explicitly called on fans to watch season two next year as the crew waiting to find out if they are renewed. Both the game and film/TV industries have been quick to bet big, and in some cases, became shorter than they (or anyone else) expected. We'll just have to wait and see how things work out—here's hoping that the collapse of the games-to-TV/film pipeline doesn't take a developer or film studio out of it.
Want more io9 news? See when to expect the latest Amazing, Star Warsand Star Trek release, what's next for DC Universe in film and TVand everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
