What’s Wrong with Video Game Adaptations?
By Markus Karlsson
November 3, 2026
Graphic by Shreya Ravi Shankar
Video game adaptations have never had a good rep. They’re usually given the “good-bad” rating: the equivalent of eating an 18” Domino's Pizza alone on a Friday night. It’s fun with friends, a little gluttonous on your own, but there’s always some shame involved. This has been the standard for video game films since their inception in 1993 with “Super Mario Bros.” A film that fans see as a cardinal sin on the franchise that bombed critically and receptionally at the box office. All the wrong lessons were taken from the realistic Italian plumbers, as video game IPs were then seen as an untapped film market. Studios would decide to subject audiences to decades of mind-numbing franchises, half-baked one-off films, and Jack Black as “Steve” from “Minecraft.”
So what’s wrong with video game adaptations? Why does there seem to be the same ceiling of quality for all of these movies? The modern-day video game adaptation is a byproduct of late-stage capitalism, which requires the director/studio to infantilize its audience with smoke screen references to original lore or characters.
Video game adaptations flaunt their IP to market towards children and cut costs by skimping on the directorial and screenwriting processes. The latest “Five Nights at Freddy's" films love doing this, because why should we care about the quality of a film when we know it’s going to suck? Especially after seeing Freddy Fazbear on the Popeye’s Menu (yum). “South Park” writer Trey Parker describes the laziness that these films exhibit perfectly in a surprise NYU visit, as the beats of this story happen through an “and then” process, not through a “but” or “therefore” causation (Evil Freddy breaks into Abby’s house, and then Good Freddy comes in to save the day). However, this type of storytelling unfortunately makes sense. Studios aren’t looking for a doozy narrative, rather a comfort story, one that’ll have fans and general audiences justifying its writing by saying “why can’t you just let people enjoy things?”
Quality won’t change unless people stop buying tickets. But who can resist going to see Matthew Lillard as Springtrap? As long as studios can provide the audience with all their favorite characters and recognizable references, the money will more than likely funnel in from whatever industry they can plaster their IP on. This is what late-stage capitalism relies on: recycling existing culture for profit. Eventually, the culture will consume itself as a result, and there will be no originality left at all. Just mind-numbing adaptations and sequels until they make their way into Fortnite.
Take 2023’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie”: a return to the Mushroom Kingdom after 30 years from its grittier counterpart. It is the pinnacle of hyperpalatability, as it bulldozes any identity the original adaptation had in favor of recognizability. Hiding behind the label of “it’s a kids movie,” “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” laughs in the audience’s face as its third act culminates into “don’t give up, Mario”; a movie so shallow it’d make 2020s Pixar look substantial. Don’t fret, we still get to see the franchise’s signature characters. Jack Black, this time as Bowser, hitting falsettos, Chris Pratt as Mario (sigh), and Charlie Day doing an eerily good Luigi. So, on top of adapting a franchise, and rebooting a film already made, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” still doesn’t progress any artistic bounds for the series that the original video game doesn’t already do better, except now you don’t have to dodge any Koopa Troopa shells for the story to advance.
Is the video game adaptation innately flawed then? Can the video game adaptation work without numbing and exploiting the audience? It depends. As long as Jack Black isn’t in your movie, then it’s a good start. Fortunately, there is finally a solution, after years of endless “Mortal Kombat" movies. The answer? Zach Cregger.
Graphic by Shreya Ravi Shankar
2026’s “Resident Evil" is an entirely self-contained story from the virus of all its pre-existing films (seven!) The film follows Bryan (Austin Abrams), a medical courier who happens to be carrying the stabilizer for a T-Virus Antidote. He is not a character from a past film or game. Cregger’s adaptation doesn’t include any legacy characters, which forces the audience to instead engage with the new interpretation, and interact with their franchise past the redditification* standards.
*Redditification - the process of art only being acceptable to the dorks who understand all the lore behind a franchise, condemning any ideas of new interpretations.
What makes Cregger’s reboot shine through the franchise’s past misery is his willingness to challenge dormant “Resident Evil” fans to an entirely new story - which feels gratuitous to say for a film that predominantly features Austin Abrams killing zombies in first person. “Resident Evil,” at its core, is a film about a man’s inability to step into the role of a father. Cregger recontextualizes the terror of the “Resident Evil” games, paralleling what may lurk in the sewers with the anxieties of venturing into the unknown world of parenting.
A true point of separation from all other video game adaptations is “Resident Evil”’s ending. Bryan fully morphs into a mutated, 20-armed, eye-bulging, crustacean zombie after being bitten by a little girl in an RV. Even though he makes it to the top of Raccoon City’s General Hospital (I felt seen when he said he’d rather die than walk up 28 flights of stairs), no one is able to administer the antidote to him in time before the virus takes complete control. The film ends with him on top of the hospital, roaring like King Kong, helicopters ready to close in on him, and then a cut to black. The whole theater, including my dad, all went “huh” in disbelief. An unrewarding ending for the strenuous journey we all just went through.
The T-Virus Antidote has fallen 28 floors, and unless that syringe is made of vibranium, all of it is gone. Bryan is a complete zombie, so Austin Abrams won’t be returning unless the government decides not to kill him and lock him up for funsies. Every other supporting character is also already dead. Zach Cregger’s ending kills all the momentum the film has. So why leave general audiences unfulfilled? Why make Austin Abrams cry over a family car decal for nothing? To send a message that no other video game adaptation has had the guts to do: it’s over. There won’t be a sequel, this is the story. A franchise reboot made to self-destruct is the antidote to capitalism’s parasitic relationship with video game adaptations.
What does the future look like, though? Can good sequels exist? Truthfully, I enjoyed the third “Sonic the Hedgehog” film. I loved its anime-style fight scenes, which the director saw as reminiscent of “Dragon Ball Z.” All it took was a really shitty teaser picture of Sonic and two subpar films to get there. What made the third film stand out from its predecessors was the derivation of another art form. Understanding that just sticking to a franchise’s pre-established stories and stylistic choices isn’t enough to progress the medium is what should be taken away from “Resident Evil” and “Sonic the Hedgehog 3.” If studios were to start actually caring about creating anything artistically fulfilling, it would allow for screenwriters to give audiences a new experience in their beloved franchises. There are thousands of talented writers out there who could create their own engaging entry into the “Super Mario” franchise; the studio just doesn’t see that as an opportunity cost to take on. At the same time, general audiences are just as complicit in buying cheaply adapted IP, as studios are in spanning it to the masses (Digger reference). Next time, when “Five Nights at Freddy’s 3” eventually comes out, think for a second before you buy that WingStop promo. ■
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