Re-loaded for television

Video game adaptations are taking over our screens, but what separates a quality TV production from a cynical cash-grab?

- Keza MacDonald

For a long time, it was an accepted truth that video games just didn't work on screen. Remember the quasi-cyberpunk 1993 Super Mario movie, starring Dennis Hopper? It was so bad that basically everyone involved with it has disavowed it. And TV? Kids of the 90s will remember the incredibly annoying voice of Sonic the Hedgehog on Saturday morning TV - or the permanent repeats of the Pokémon anime series - but other than that, the entertainment world never took games seriously.

Things have changed. In the past few years, Hollywood has managed to produce a few videogame films that are actually watchable, such as Detective Pikachu and Sonic the Hedgehog 2. And barely a week goes by without an announcement that another game has been picked up for TV - all of which are aimed at adults.

There's a science fiction series based on Halo from 2001 whose original fans are well into their 30s and beyond. Netflix has, in production, an adaptation of Assassin's Creed, the historical action game that makes you run around in elaborate simulations of ancient Egypt or Renaissance Italy. This is added to the streaming group's 15-rated take on The Witcher, starring Henry Cavill, which is almost as filthy and violent as its source material. And in an Inception-level example of games and TV inspiring each other, there's even a series based on Cuphead, itself a homage to early 1920s cartoons.