by Wen Tu
When video games are adapted into films, audiences bring expectations grounded in lived experience. Players invest hours into learning how a world works, how a character moves, and how a story unfolds. It’s this deep engagement with narrative, mechanics and environment that makes them invested in a game, and just as critical when it moves to another format. When filmmakers fail to grasp or respect those foundations, they risk producing a hollow version that looks familiar but feels disconnected.
Why Games and Film Need to Work Well Together
Cinema’s strength lies in its ability to tell stories visually, while games thrive on interactivity. The best adaptations understand that the connection between these media is not just about aesthetics but about immersion. A film must give viewers the sense that the world they’re watching obeys the same rules and logic that players experienced in the game.
This immersive experience isn’t confined to PC or console titles. Online and digital gaming, including iGaming, are just as reliant on authenticity. These platforms offer massive libraries and thematic depth, often centred around clear mechanics and predictable outcomes. Players return to these spaces not because they’re visually impressive alone, but because the rules make sense, the feedback is immediate, and the experience feels consistent.
In the iGaming sector, particularly with online pokies, design choices such as theme, volatility, and symbol alignment echo the narrative and mechanical consistency seen in larger story-based games. This is evident in platforms featuring real-money pokies, where themed formats support engagement through continuity across design and function. For those interested in these sites, they can find out more about these platforms through structured gameplay experiences. It is where players access hundreds of rotating titles. Those that maintain cohesion across visuals, mechanics and expected outcomes tend to retain attention longer.
These elements parallel what film adaptations must do. Just as online titles maintain player trust through consistent mechanics and thematic design, films must do the same, offering a narrative that not only looks like the game but feels like it too.
What Some Adaptations Got Right, and Others Missed
The Tomb Raider franchise provides a revealing comparison. The 2001 film with Angelina Jolie leaned heavily on recognisable iconography like Lara’s gear, Croft Manor, acrobatic action, and maintained the sense of exploration that defined the early games. However, it also injected unnecessary Hollywood gloss, sidelining the puzzle-solving and quiet tension that made the gameplay unique. Some moments even saw Lara smashing priceless artefacts, a far cry from the archaeological curiosity she’s supposed to represent.
The 2018 reboot starring Alicia Vikander took a more grounded route. It mirrored the tone of the recent game series reboots, focusing on survival and emotional stakes. The film retained key environmental elements, like treacherous terrain and ancient ruins, and gave audiences a more vulnerable, evolving protagonist. While the plot didn’t always capture the game’s mythic qualities, it made up for it with fidelity to Lara’s motivations and physicality.
In contrast, the 2016 Warcraft film struggled under the weight of its source material. Visually, it succeeded; it brought Azeroth to life with rich CGI environments and captured the physical presence of the orcs and humans convincingly. But narratively, the film was overloaded. Too many characters and too much lore made it inaccessible to newcomers and exhausting for fans. The tone also skewed too serious, missing the strategic absurdity and factional nuance that have kept players engaged in the game for decades.
The more recent Uncharted film falls somewhere in the middle. While Tom Holland delivered a serviceable Nathan Drake and the action sequences borrowed liberally from the games, the story lacked the sharp wit and layered relationships that define the franchise. In adapting the plot to film, it smoothed out too many rough edges, leaving a version that felt like a generic treasure-hunting movie rather than something with Uncharted’s unique texture.
What Successful Adaptations Concretely Did Right
Visual authenticity remains a major factor. Costumes, settings and character appearances must reflect what players recognise. It’s not just about looks, either. The emotional tone, pacing and character dynamics also have to carry over. Jolie’s Lara Croft embodied the confidence and style of the original games, even when the scripts faltered. Vikander’s portrayal, by contrast, drew strength from emotional realism, closer to the rebooted game series.
Successful films also know when to narrow down the scope. Rather than cramming in every possible reference or faction, they focus on developing a few key threads properly. The quieter scenes in Tomb Raider (2018), where Lara deciphers clues or navigates traps, resonate precisely because they are similar to the reflective pace of gameplay.
The 2024 Borderlands adaptation offers a more recent example of how a film can successfully replicate a game’s aesthetic while still missing its emotional depth. Visually, it stays true to the stylised design and chaotic world familiar to players, but according to reviewers, the character arcs and pacing lacked substance.
Even with a strong cast, including Cate Blanchett, the film struggled to translate the game’s unpredictable energy and player-driven momentum into something narratively compelling. This gap again highlights the challenge of balancing visual fidelity with storytelling that respects the game’s original rhythm.
What Adaptations Often Get Wrong
Many falter by underestimating how much the rules of a game matter. Gameplay logic, how magic works, how alliances form, what stakes matter, can’t be thrown out without consequences. Warcraft tried to honour too much at once, diluting emotional impact. Other adaptations, like Assassin’s Creed, changed fundamental ideas around memory, identity and consequence that fans had spent years engaging with.
Stripping away supernatural or mythic elements often leads to something too generic. In chasing mainstream appeal, adaptations sometimes erase the very features that made the games compelling. Worse still, over‑explaining elements that players accepted intuitively can slow the pacing and flatten the mystery.
Characters need to behave in recognisable ways. Fans don’t just watch movies based on games to see their favourite characters on screen. They also want to see those characters make choices that align with what they’ve previously experienced. A character’s logic must follow through, just like a well-balanced game mechanic.
Films that respect the source material on all these levels, world, rules, tone, and characters, stand a far better chance of satisfying both die-hard fans and casual audiences alike.
