11 Game Adaptations We Want to See on Screen

I’d adapt Myst into a prestige anthology series where each season explores a different Age. Running Castle of Chaos taught me that the best immersive experiences happen when you give people just enough information to feel smart, then let them connect the dots themselves–that’s exactly what Myst mastered before anyone else.

The show should be almost dialogue-free for the first two episodes, forcing viewers to piece together what happened through environmental clues and the Stranger’s journal entries. When we pioneered the Level 5 touch experience at Castle of Chaos, we learned that personalization only works when guests make active choices that change their path–Myst’s linking books are the perfect mechanic for that, where each episode could follow different viewer theories about which Age to explore next through interactive streaming.

Here’s what matters: treat silence like a scare actor treats timing. Our actors train to read guests and adapt in real-time, knowing when to hold back creates more tension than constant action. Myst needs entire scenes of the protagonist just… solving puzzles, with only ambient sound and the viewer’s own problem-solving filling the space.

The biggest mistake would be explaining Atrus’s backstory upfront. We increased repeat visits to Castle of Chaos by 34% when we made our storylines modular–guests could experience rooms in different orders and still feel satisfied. Structure Myst the same way: drop viewers into D’ni with zero context, let them earn every revelation about the civilization’s fall, and trust that confusion creates engagement when the world itself is beautiful enough to explore.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City screams for a gritty limited series. Its Scarface-meets-Carlito’s Way vibe is already pure TV gold. Tommy Vercetti’s story kicks off with his prison release, straight into a botched drug deal ambush. Classic noir: a guy just wants back in the game, only to get screwed by his own boss, Sonny Forelli.

The heart is Tommy and Lance Vance’s bromance-gone-sour arc. They start as ambitious partners, but paranoia and betrayal turn them into enemies. Prime drama fuel that TV eats up!

The real challenge? Those chaotic rampages. You can’t just copy-paste open-world mayhem without killing the suspension of disbelief. Instead, pivot to strategy. Tommy’s calculated grabs for the Malibu Club, Print Works, and taxi firm. Violence becomes smart business, not random destruction.

Picture a neon-drenched ’80s period piece. No infinite respawns or cop chase nonsense. It’s all about the twists! Realizing Sonny’s been playing Tommy, the loyalty tests, and the brutal cost of empire-building. Strip the game logic, keep the human stakes, and you’ve got a binge-worthy crime saga that honors the source while standing on its own.

I’d adapt Bioshock as a limited series because it’s built on the slow reveal–something I apply constantly in property marketing when we’re launching new developments. The game works by letting players find Rapture’s fall piece by piece, which is exactly how we positioned The Teller House by gradually showing its 1920s bank history alongside modern luxury features.

The adaptation needs to resist exposition dumps and instead use environmental storytelling. When I created video tours for FLATS properties, we learned that showing a granite countertop means nothing without context–but pan past historic architectural details first, then reveal the modern kitchen, and suddenly you’ve told a story about change. Rapture’s audio diaries would work the same way: scatter them across episodes so viewers reconstruct the ideology’s collapse themselves.

Here’s the key: structure it like a lease-up campaign timeline. We increased tour-to-lease conversions by 7% when we let prospects control their finding process through 3D tours and illustrated floorplans rather than forcing a scripted walkthrough. Apply that to Bioshock–give viewers Andrew Ryan’s utopian vision in Episode 1, then let each episode systematically dismantle one pillar of that vision through character-specific storylines, not narrator voiceover.

The “Would You Kindly” twist only lands if you’ve made viewers complicit in ignoring red flags, similar to how I track bounce rates and engagement metrics. When our paid search ads reduced bounce rates by 5%, it meant we’d finally aligned expectation with reality. The show needs that same alignment–make the audience *want* to follow orders before revealing they never had a choice.

I think Red Dead Redemption would make an incredible TV series, especially if it were treated as a slow-burn drama rather than a flashy action show.

The game already has everything you need for great storytelling. Complex characters, moral gray areas, and a world that feels alive and unforgiving. I’d imagine it playing out over multiple seasons, with each season focusing less on gunfights and more on the relationships inside the gang. The tension between loyalty and survival would really drive the story.

What would make it work on screen is leaning into the human side. Arthur’s internal struggle, the slow collapse of the group, and the sense that the old way of life is fading. That kind of storytelling works beautifully in TV because it gives characters room to breathe. You can sit with quiet moments, long conversations, and the consequences of choices, not just the action.

Visually, it wouldn’t need to overdo anything. Wide landscapes, long shots, and a grounded tone would do most of the work. Think more character-driven Western than blockbuster spectacle.

If done right, it wouldn’t feel like “a video game adaptation.” It would feel like a strong, emotional series that just happens to be based on a game people already love.

The game that absolutely needs to be a limited TV series is Stardew Valley. I know it sounds crazy—it is just a farming simulator—but the game’s core strength is not farming; it is the human drama and small-town loneliness. That is gold for television.

I envision the adaptation as a ten-episode series, totally focused on the characters, not the crops. The main character, who is burnt out from the corporate world, moves to this rundown farm to pursue a new purpose. The first season would not be about making a million gold. It would be about the struggle: the leaky roof, the exhaustion, and the subtle, awkward ways the townspeople deal with loss and isolation.

The show would focus on unlocking the character arcs we only glimpse in the game. Imagine an entire episode dedicated to Shane’s quiet battle with depression, or another focused on the Mayor’s secret love life and trying to keep the town funded. The main character’s purpose is simply to rebuild the community, one small interaction at a time. It would be less The Last of Us and more Schitt’s Creek meets a quiet family drama, and that kind of slow-burn, emotional storytelling is exactly what people want now.

The game I think would make a great TV show adaptation is Cities: Skylines. I know—it sounds crazy coming from the owner of an HVAC company, but hear me out: the game isn’t just about building pretty roads; it’s about infrastructure, logistics, and balancing competing needs under constant pressure, which is essentially what I deal with every day running Honeycomb Air here in San Antonio.

I envision it as a smart, intense HBO-style drama—less about the Mayor and more about the department heads. We’d follow the city’s Director of Public Works, the Chief of Police, and the head of the Transit Authority as they navigate real-world problems: a massive traffic jam that halts emergency services, the aging power grid overloading in a heatwave, or a sudden water pipe burst that affects half the city. Each episode would be a crisis that forces the team to compromise and innovate, showing the human cost of poor planning.

The appeal, for me as a business owner, is the focus on systems under strain. The show would highlight how one failure—say, an outdated zoning law or a neglected piece of the cooling infrastructure—creates cascading failures that impact thousands of lives. It teaches the audience that maintaining vital services is a non-stop, gritty job. It would be a tribute to the unseen workers who keep the lights, the water, and the comfort running smoothly, which is a story I can always appreciate.

Kentucky Route Zero would make a great TV show, but not one that relies on dialogue. From my work in animation sound, I’ve learned the power is in the quiet. You could tell the whole story with a slow banjo tune, the sound of wind through an old barn, and a distant train. Let the quiet visuals and those sounds work together. It feels like a memory you can almost quite place, both nostalgic and completely immersive.

I think the game Firewatch would make an amazing movie or limited series because of its emotional storytelling and scenic setting. The adaptation could follow the same plot where a man takes a summer job as a fire lookout to escape personal struggles and forms a deep connection with his supervisor through radio conversations. The show could use wide landscape shots and quiet moments to capture the isolation and beauty of the Wyoming wilderness. The mystery element would build slowly as unusual events begin happening around the watchtower. The heart of the adaptation would focus on the two main characters and how their conversations help them confront what they are running from. It would work well as a five- or six-episode series that blends drama, mystery, and character-driven storytelling.

Elden Ring would make a great dark fantasy show. I saw it at a convention once. People didn’t just walk past the props; they stopped at the ones with stories etched into the metal. They should make episodes about those legendary weapons, following each one’s history. That’s how you tell the story of that world, and the look has to be dead-on with the game.

I often play Polytopia to recharge, and I believe it would make a compelling TV series. The narrative could track competing groups as they build, explore, and face pivotal choices that shape their world. A season-based arc would allow one group to take the lead each time, providing distinct perspectives on growth and conflict. Episodes would balance character development with strategic turning points to sustain tension. The result would be a focused production that highlights leadership, resilience, and the consequences of choice.

I think Conker’s Bad Fur Day would be a huge hit. It had a lot of parody and very crude humor, which was shocking at the time because it was a Nintendo game. It developed a cult following and had very memorable characters such as The Great Mighty Poo and the Sunflower. As an R-rated comedy, I think it would perform just as well as Deadpool, which was a pretty huge success.