Paramount / Xbox

Recent video game adaptations, like Resident Evil on Netflix and Halo on Paramount+, have been heavily criticized online by fans for veering too far from the original source material the shows are supposedly inspired by. And while I do hesitate to agree with angry fans online and I think adaptations should be allowed to make changes, it’s hard not to get a bit annoyed by how often the Master Chief takes off his helmet in the new Halo show. And as Sanders points out, Amazon has a good track record with adaptations that fans like, listing The Boys and Invincible as examples of how to do adaptations correctly.

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Of course, talk is cheap, and making TV shows is hard. It’s always nice to say you’ll stay true to a video game’s storyline and narrative, but it’s much harder to do when so many of the games being adapted into TV shows are mainly 20 hours of combat with about four hours of cutscenes and script. But hey, maybe God of War on Amazon Prime and The Last of Us on HBO Max will be fantastic and true to their source material. Apparently, The Last of Us is actually the greatest story ever told in a video game. Seems like that should make for a few good episodes of prestige TV?