Narrative-driven games throughout the history of this media have told unforgettable stories that we would have wished to experience also on the small screen through the performance of real actors. Other games have been captivating thanks to their roster of characters and crumbs of lore given through small cinematics, live action, or just a few lines of text like what happens in multiplayer-oriented games.
Post-apocalyptic scenarios, space operas that could compete with iconic cornerstones like Star Trek or Star Wars, western stories worthy of the best Sergio Leone, and fascinating dystopian realities are waiting to be adapted into TV blockbusters. This list tries to cherry-pick the best of each genre and aims at the most varied type of audience possible.
10 Apex Legends
Titanfall 2, in its single-player mode, already told a beautiful story of a pilot and its Titan, letting us live the heart-touching connection between Jack Cooper, a rifleman of the Milita boasting the voice of the legendary Matthew Mercer, and his giant friend, BT.
Apex Legends has several strings to its bow and involves its cast of characters, charismatic heroes, vicious villains, and, above all, epic and combative contenders. Stories from the Outlands, the animated series that features short cinematic showing a pinch of the background of the characters and their own stories, gave us a glimpse of the potential of an Apex Legends TV show.
9 Alan Wake
Alan Wake is one of the best exclusives released on Xbox 360. Remedy Entertainment, the software house that made the legendary noir icon Max Payne and created the Remedy Connected Universe, which involves, besides the already mentioned Alan Wake, the fascinating but unfortunate Quantum Break, and the charming Control, is well-known for the quality of the writing in its games.
Alan Wake has slowly become, year after year, a cult title, and its fans have been clamoring for a sequel till its announcement during The Game Awards 2021. In a TV show based on this IP, they could give you the perfect synthesis between Stephen King’s writing and Flanagan’s direction.
8 BioShock
The first installment of the BioShock series is a masterpiece that still holds up nowadays in artistic and narrative respects. This charming utopia came out of the visionary mind of Ken Levine and boasted one of the most creative settings ever created.
The story takes place in Rapture, an underwater city that gets rid of the morality that enslaves humanity, which lives on the surface and where everyone can be whoever he wants to be, thanks to mutagenic serums that interact with the genome and directly modify the DNA. On this basis, BioShock could potentially be a splendid dystopian noir series.
Kojima is globally considered one of the best designers that have ever stepped into the video game world. Metal Gear Solid is a legendary franchise born on PlayStation and regarded by many as a cornerstone of the game industry and one of the best titles of each platform it got released on.
Metal Gear Solid is a technothriller that features a compelling narrative soaked in ethical dilemmas, beautiful dialogues, a dystopian take on the Cold War, and even The Selfish Gene of Richard Dawkins. It seems to have all it takes to become a masterpiece for TV as well.
6 Diablo
Diablo is the king of the action RPGs and features a splendid dark fantasy world where humans, angels, and demons coexist in a fragile balance. Diablo is an obscure tale that started more than twenty-five years ago and a macabre and fascinating journey in which you could visit claustrophobic dungeons, haunting cemeteries, and even the depth of hell. Adversaries like Diablo itself, Belial, King Leoric, Azmodan, and the unforgettable Butcher, have the potential to deliver a blasphemous and violent unparalleled TV show in terms of dark atmosphere, truculence, and aesthetic.
5 Overwatch
Overwatch is a milestone that greatly influenced the video game industry, generating the hero-shooter wave of titles and managing to win the GOTY award over opponents of the caliber of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, DOOM, and Titanfall 2.
Although not offering a single-player campaign and delegating the storytelling to a bunch of lines of dialogue and lore information emerged from some masterfully crafted animated shorts, the charm of this game’s lore went through the roof. A TV show born in the surge of enthusiasm after Overwatch 2 and its single-player could be the natural process of evolution of the franchise.
4 Death Stranding
Kojima was confirmed to be a genius once again with the debut title of its studio, Kojima Productions. He cooperated with Guerrilla Games and borrowed its Decima Engine to create a never seen experience that was superficially branded by many as a courier simulator.
Boasting a stellar cast that did a world-class actorial performance, Death Stranding offered a heart-touching experience. Roaming and delivering packaging in a desolated post-cataclysmic world, together with other players in an asynchronous multiplayer, to reconnect the world is a journey you need to embark on. And such a beautiful environment, narrative, and storytelling could be beautifully ported to the small screen in a TV adaptation.
3 Wolfenstein
Wolfenstein is the forefather, together with DOOM, of the FPS genre and a timeless classic that boasts gameplay that is still enjoyable nowadays after more than thirty years from the debut of B.J. Blazkowicz on the beloved MS-DOS.
In 2014, Machine Games inherited this franchise and has rendered justice to its legacy. The trilogy made of The Old Blood, The New Order, and The New Colossus is the perfect substrate for a charming alt-history set in Nazi Germany. The Man in the High Castle and Overlord showed us that a Wolfenstein TV series would be an instant classic.
2 Red Dead Redemption
Red Dead Redemption is the narrative masterpiece of Rockstar Games, and both chapters of this franchise could deserve a high-budget TV show with multiple seasons with the certainty of obtaining an excellent result and being regarded among the best series ever made.
John Marston and Arthur Morgan, whose stories are strictly connected, are two main characters that every game could envy. The quality of writing that exudes each quest and narrative, the depth of the characterization of the cast, and the beautiful environments could concur to create an epic saga of vengeance and redemption that could easily overshadow a heavyweight like Deadwood.
1 Mass Effect
Mass Effect sits on the top of this list and is the best potential TV series of the citadel. The sci-fi universe created by the legendary developer Casey Hudson and the renowned Drew Karpyshyn boasts one of the most profound and fascinating world-building ever seen in the video game industry.
The saga that sees Commander Shepard as its protagonist offers brilliantly written dialogues second leads with captivating stories, passionate romances, large-scale battles, and fascinating themes like self-determination and ethics. There is material for a long-running series that could easily compete with any space opera ever made.
