There are some films which are just so brilliant that people can’t help but be inspired by them. Sometimes this inspiration leads to great things and sometimes it really disappoints. Making a video game that’s based on a film is a tough job from the beginning. There’ll be lots of people that truly loved the film which you’re basing your game on, so expectations will be sky high. However, if you love a film enough (and believe there’s enough money to be made from a video game), then you’ll do your very best to create a powerful homage to it. We’ve collected some of the most loved and the most loathed film-to-video game ventures so that you can enjoy all the drama right here.
JURASSIC WORLD EVOLUTION
There has been a whole slew of games based on the Jurassic Park films and it’s hardly surprising. Who can resist the levels of adventure that bringing dinosaurs back to life provides? There are some games that got it really wrong and, honestly, most of those have been totally forgotten about, but there are some games that came really close to capturing an audience’s imagination in the same way that the original films did. Jurassic World Evolution was perhaps the first game that did an admirable job. Released in 2018 for a variety of platforms, the game allowed players to construct their very own Jurassic Park. They were given the islands of Las Cinco Muertes Archipelago to complete their vision and, for anyone who speaks a little Spanish, you’ll realize the gruesome name of those islands, i.e. The Five Deaths. On the appropriately named archipelago, players could choose from more than forty types of dinosaurs, including all of the species that you see in the films. The game also introduced a unique and clever feature, allowing players to modify genes and introduce new features into their pool of dinosaurs. As players worked alongside the three subdivisions of their park – Security, Science, and Entertainment – they unlocked new and more difficult challenges.
The game cost more than £8 million to develop and took a good couple of years before it was ready for release. It was cleverly released at the same time as the Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom film and it initially received huge praise. Frontier Developments, the team behind the game, had worked tirelessly to include the fans’ favorite parts, as well as real audio from the actors in the upcoming film. Although some glitches were reported a while after release, the game is still being updated to this day, despite a sequel now being available. To date, this game remains Frontier’s most widely purchased game, with more than three million copies sold so far.
LEGO STAR WARS: THE SKYWALKER SAGA
There’s a big crossover between cinema and gaming and, as such, there have been hundreds of video games based entirely on films. One of the film franchises that is the most commonly reproduced in game format is, of course, Star Wars. There have been literally dozens of Star Wars games, but the ones that get the best reviews time and time again are always the Lego Star Wars games. Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is the most recent of these titles, only released this year in 2022. It’s the sixth game in the TT Games’ Lego Star Wars series and comes after a pretty lengthy six-year wait since The Force Awakens. However, upon playing the game, the reason for the long wait becomes incredibly clear. This game pulls together all nine entries in the Skywalker Saga series of films, allowing players to explore the whole adventure in whatever order they would like.
Anyone who’s watched the Star Wars films will know that fitting all of that information into one video game was a mammoth task. Amazingly, though, the game received great reviews and in it’s first two weeks sold more than three million copies. Players can run through each episode in no less than 45 levels, as opposed to the previous Lego games which offered just six. There are collectibles to find throughout the game and the combat style has improved massively on its predecessors. Players can also choose from almost 400 different playable characters which is an amazing boost for those who adore characters that are a little less famous. Overall, this is a game that put the fans first every step of the way and it shows from its already enormous monetary success.
