9 video games that need to be adapted for TV

With the The Last Of Us premiering Sunday on HBO, here are more beloved games that deserve the prestige-television treatment

By Sam Barsanti, William Hughes | January 10, 2023 | 3:00pm

TV Features Video Games

9 video games that need to be adapted for TV

Pedro Pascal in The Last Of Us Photo: Liane Hentscher/HBO

Although TV shows based on video games have become more common in recent years—the last 12 months have seen adaptations of Halo, Cyberpunk, League Of Legends, Resident Evil, and more on the small screen—they’re still typically viewed as a rarity in comparison to the more common move from games to film. Gaming’s credibility in Network Land is likely to get a strong boost in a couple of days, though, when HBO deploys The Last Of Us, Craig Mazin’s pricey adaptation of Naughty Dog’s prestigious interactive zombie epic of the same name.

Because while The Last Of Us isn’t necessarily groundbreaking in terms of adapting a popular video game to TV, it is a major step forward in networks treating the end product like more than a shoddily produced afterthought. And that embrace by HBO opens the door for many of gaming’s other biggest franchises to get a similar treatment.

So we have to ask: Which beloved games could become TV’s next big things?

Death Stranding

Death Stranding – E3 2016 Reveal Trailer | PS4

Original Death Stranding developer Kojima Productions , but let’s be clear: The game is absolutely not suited to being a movie. It would be possible to tell a completely different story set in that world as a movie, but if we’re talking about adapting the actual story beats of Death Stranding, then only a TV show would make sense. (Actually, only a video game makes sense, because making you an active participant in the loneliness that pervades the experience is important, but that’s not the exercise here.)Starring Norman Reedus as Sam Porter Bridges, a post-apocalyptic deliveryman, Death Stranding takes place after a cataclysmic event that definitively proved the existence of an afterlife, released ghosts from that afterlife that try to kill people, created deadly rain that makes everything it touches rapidly age, and forced most of humanity to move to underground bunkers. The actual plot is about Sam traveling around the United States, convincing people to sign up for what is basically a government-backed wi-fi network, so the federal government can reestablish some kind of control. Everyone thinks that’s a stupid idea, though, so Sam’s actual goal is convincing people (and learning for himself) that human connection is good and worthwhile.Also, yes, you kill the ghosts with grenades made of pee and guns that shoot blood, okay? And there are terrorists trying to trigger an extinction event that will wipe out all of humanity, which is scary. But also there are other bad guys who are former deliverymen who became obsessed with collecting packages and will try to kill Sam to steal his packages, which is silly. It’s a lot. There’s a lot going on. Too much for a movie. [Sam Barsanti]

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