Levelling up: The emergence of video game movies, music and TV shows
For decades, video game fans were wary of movie or TV adaptations because of the poor track record of studios translating games to the screen.
The 90s saw some atrocious adaptations of video game's hottest properties with Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter and even a terrible Super Mario Bros movie.
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The 2000s were not any better with the likes of Assassin's Creed, Prince of Persia and Silent Hill all being panned critically and only performed modestly at the box office.
At times, it felt like there would never be a faithful adaptation, but thankfully, that has all changed in recent years. With video games as a medium maturing, studios started to realise what medium suited each game.
Instead of making a two or three-hour movie based on the groundbreaking The Last of Us (which is around 15 hours), HBO decided to make a TV series to fully flesh out the dark and brutal world of the source material.
Amazon Studios decided to create a brand new story in the world of Fallout rather than rehash the story from one of the games. It was a great decision, as it introduced the world of Fallout to new viewers and with a new set of characters to get invested in.
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It also meant they did not have to try and translate gameplay moments onto the small screen and instead come up with their own set pieces for TV.
Box office receipts
With both shows being nominated and winning multiple Emmys, it highlighted how far video game series had come.
When it comes to the big screen, we are seeing more family-friendly movies based on video games having great success. The recent Sonic trilogy has grossed a total of $1 billion (€88 million) and The Super Mario Bros movie alone grossed €1.36 billion (€1.2 billion) at the box office.
It once again shows how, when you match a video game franchise with the right format, you can have a massive hit.
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With the likes of a God of War show and a Legend of Zelda movie in the works, there are plenty of games still waiting to be adapted.
It is not just movies and TV shows, as music from video games has become increasingly popular, with some of the best composers scoring video games.
It is not just movies and TV shows, as music from video games has become increasingly popular, with some of the best composers scoring video games.
Bear McCreary, Gustavo Santaolalla,
Nobuo Uematsu, and Christopher Tin have all created iconic soundtracks for the biggest games out there.
It is just another way to relive the experience of playing your favourite games without having to play.
This was certainly the case on Saturday, April 19th, at the
3Arena
when PlayStation kicked off their global tour which showcased the music from their biggest franchises, like Ghost of Tsushima, God of War, Horizon and The Last of Us.
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A visual feast
A group of 15 multi-instrumentalists put on a brilliant show that mixed epic anthems with more intimate numbers. Accompanying it was an incredible visual feast for the eyes that was a pleasure to experience in person.
Several transparent screens came down from the roof and had impressive visuals displayed on them to complement the story being told through the music.
The mix of footage from the games and custom-made videos for the concert was spellbinding. It was truly an audio-visual experience as everything blended together so seamlessly.
The only drawback of the show was at times, the orchestra played some of the lesser-known songs from these games and could have added main themes from some of the smaller games in the PlayStation library instead.
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The PlayStation concert had some of the best live visuals I've ever seen! The orchestra were incredible as well and got a deserved standing ovation at the end. What a show.
#PlayStationTheConcert
pic.twitter.com/6DvM6ZRDRQ
— Kenneth Fox (@kennyboyfox92)
April 19, 2025
Video game concerts in general are becoming more popular with the likes of Sonic Symphony, Final Fantasy's New World and Video Games Live gathering fans from far and wide.
Sadly, many of these tours do not grace our shores and are centred around North America. Thankfully, the likes of the PlayStation Concert, coming here hopefully, means more concerts will be headed our way.
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The Last of Us thrills viewers with an episode for...
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It is clear video games are a hot property at the moment, and studios realise it is better to give the adaptation the care it deserves as opposed to a cheap cash-in.
It is clear video games are a hot property at the moment, and studios realise it is better to give the adaptation the care it deserves as opposed to a cheap cash-in.
In truth, that is the real story of video games being translated to movies and TV. Executives saw the money they could make from these successful franchises without thinking about how to make a faithful version of it.
As they slowly started to learn this lesson, we have thankfully seen brilliant adaptations that not only expand on the game's original stories but have garnered millions of new fans who are more likely to play the next game and watch the next show.
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