What role do games play in the wheel of content that always turns
The rationale that justifies this significant push for the transition of game worlds into on-screen experiences is both economic and cultural as the global creative industries try to usher gaming into the mainstream and try to headline a culture that has become steadily ubiquitous as a global leisure time activity.
Hyderabad: A movie on Gran Turismo, yes; another on Ghost of Tsushima, definitely; a series on The Last of Us – already a success; Halo– a second season in the works; Horizon, Nier Automata, God of War, Devil May Cry– the list of franchises inspiring/serving as foundations for films, and series (both live-action and animated) seems nearly endless.
The rationale that justifies this significant push for the transition of game worlds into on-screen experiences is both economic and cultural as the global creative industries try to usher gaming into the mainstream and try to headline a culture that has become steadily ubiquitous as a global leisure time activity.
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However, this push also requires an understanding of video games as not merely platforms that tell stories of fictional, magical worlds but also sites where players put in hours of work to explore, level-up, and identify bits of themselves in the various characters they engage with.
Film and television have seldom worked with this kind of an approach as they are primarily narrative focused and their plots often drive how their worlds are detailed. For instance, games like No Man’s Sky or the recently released Starfield are what the players want them to be – canvases the size of the universe (made possible by AI rendering) that are open to be explored. It is through these acts of exploration that players find meanings and purpose for their figurative interstellar journeys.
The Mandalorian’s adventures with Grogu are the closest parallel that video (apologies for the collective term) can offer to compare with the space odyssey that players perform every time a game like Mass Effect or Outer Worlds drops. However, there is a caveat: the Mandalorian’s ship only flies to planets that are necessary for the plot and the number of detours that can be made is determined by the plot’s complexity.
The meaning and narrative that the directors and scriptwriters wish to convey is bound by both logistical and economic concerns (cost of shooting at new venues, extra characters, so on and so forth) and the need to carefully balance plot complexity with viewer accessibility – video games simply don’t work this way.
Games can unwrap their plots at leisure through sequences of play and cut-scenes in a layered fashion that video can’t offer. As a medium, games are seldom static and when a player seems to be stuck, the price for progression is rethinking and strategizing. Thus, adapting in-game actions to the screen is a challenge because the joy of overcoming a significant obstacle seldom translates to the non-interactive video.
Thus, all video game adaptations are in essence a lossy process. The fluidity, freedom, interactivity, and randomness, make way for the cinematic -but something is gained in the transition too. The cinematic offers newer perspectives, a shift away from the embodied protagonist, a space to build in new meanings and interpretations, and I believe that is the key to adapting games.
Arcane offers us new meanings to Vi and Powder’s relationships, the weapons they wield, and the motives that fuel the society they are part of. Halo takes away the beloved Master Chief from us but allows us to understand his role in maintaining intergalactic supremacy for humans. Last of Us informs us how the virus and zombies came to be. New meanings, new understanding.
Adaptations aren’t meant to replace but to complement and augment. As the Mandalorian says it – this is the way!
