Metal Gear Forums

With the explosion in popularity and critical acclaim video game adaptations have begun to garner in recent years, I thought this would be an interesting discussion. Especially considering...


A24 are set to produce an Elden Ring movie with Alex Garland heading up screenwriting.

This is honestly bananas(where's the Donkey Kong movie at?!), Garland is hit and miss to the extreme, but his most recent efforts I've been pretty impressed with. Weirdly, also think it's 100% the correct choice to avoid somebody with a lean to Fantasy fiction backgrounds in their credits, this is a project which could so easily (and may well be still) bogged down with constant fluff. Simultaneously, if they retain the more nuanced and subtle storytelling aspects of Fromsoft (and before any of you smart-asses make the joke - no, I do not mean the main character reading 12 pages worth of item descriptions to decipher who sucked off who), this could be a truly rich film.

Saw this a few weeks back and was unsure on it. Maybe it'll work but I'm not sure something like a Dark Souls / Elden Ring world translates to a movie very well, especially given the general feeling of isolation in the world. I'm not a big fan of Garland either but a lot of that is probably down to a lot of his politics and the influence of that on some of his work.

Not only did we get the Elden Ring game before The Winds of Winter, we're going to get an Elden Ring FILM before TWoW! George, my brother in Christ please we can't take any more of this.

Video game adaptations have seemingly been given a new lease of life due to the success of a streak of TV series (The Witcher, The Last of Us, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, Arcane, Fallout), but films remain mostly bad, barring some of the more family-friendly stuff like Mario and Sonic.

I watched Borderlands last year, and it is genuinely one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Uncharted was mostly shite, and the recent Until Dawn movie is a disrespectful mess.

It's already been announced that there's going to be an Expedition 33 movie. The game has literally been out for a month.

Of all the game adaptions, a fromsoft title is fucking baffling. No aspect of what makes the games fun can be condensed into a 2 hour film except for armored core.

Can’t wait to watch the train wreck.

(23-05-2025, 03:08 PM)NateDog Wrote: [ -> ]Saw this a few weeks back and was unsure on it. Maybe it'll work but I'm not sure something like a Dark Souls / Elden Ring world translates to a movie very well, especially given the general feeling of isolation in the world. I'm not a big fan of Garland either but a lot of that is probably down to a lot of his politics and the influence of that on some of his work.

I'm aware you likely mean 'Hollywood' when you say movie rather than cinema itself but that sort of atmosphere does have the potential to be done to great effect on the screen. Angel's Egg for instance shows that if done right that sort of world with minimal plot and unspoken lore can work very well. While not quite the same I do feel like Garland's Annihilation did have a fair amount of moments that weren't necessarily plot furthering as much as they were for conveying the other-ness and isolation of the setting if memory serves.

I haven't even played Elden Ring yet so I have no stakes in this. But the best video game adaptation in this new slew of them is actually Paramount+'s Knuckles which is free on ITVX if anyone has a spare evening and wishes to verify that for themselves. I watched the entire thing on a 7 hour coach ride on boxing day and actually loved it for whatever reason-it's honestly a bit odd with what it chooses to do but I fuck with it.

(24-05-2025, 09:45 PM)Dirty Duck Wrote: [ -> ]

(23-05-2025, 03:08 PM)NateDog Wrote: [ -> ]Saw this a few weeks back and was unsure on it. Maybe it'll work but I'm not sure something like a Dark Souls / Elden Ring world translates to a movie very well, especially given the general feeling of isolation in the world. I'm not a big fan of Garland either but a lot of that is probably down to a lot of his politics and the influence of that on some of his work.

I'm aware you likely mean 'Hollywood' when you say movie rather than cinema itself but that sort of atmosphere does have the potential to be done to great effect on the screen. Angel's Egg for instance shows that if done right that sort of world with minimal plot and unspoken lore can work very well. While not quite the same I do feel like Garland's Annihilation did have a fair amount of moments that weren't necessarily plot furthering as much as they were for conveying the other-ness and isolation of the setting if memory serves.

I haven't even played Elden Ring yet so I have no stakes in this. But the best video game adaptation in this new slew of them is actually Paramount+'s Knuckles which is free on ITVX if anyone has a spare evening and wishes to verify that for themselves. I watched the entire thing on a 7 hour coach ride on boxing day and actually loved it for whatever reason-it's honestly a bit odd with what it chooses to do but I fuck with it.

I suppose, yeah. I mean given the attention it has gotten in the mainstream I'd assume it would be funded well and would be expected to be a big action-oriented adventure, potentially high on CG usage, and Garland doesn't inspire me with confidence. 

ER isn't the exact same as Dark Souls of course, but DkS1 in particular is such an engrossing experience for me because of the sense of loneliness in the world, not just for your character but for other characters that you either come across in person or read about through lore. It can certainly work, but I just don't expect that it'll be something that feels faithful and so I could see it being something that feels a little bit out of place.

Adaptations seem to not be able to capture the part of games that we are mostly drawn to: the gameplay. The studios just seem to want to translate the story into a movie, which I think is their downfall.

I'm not saying they should do what the Doom movie did and make a whole section look like gameplay, thats too jarring, and looks gimmicky. What I mean is if there's an action scene, get the characters to recreate scenarios that would be common in the game, use a camera angle that let's you see everything. There's lots they could do to capture elements of gameplay.

As an aside note I always thought Behind Enemy Lines was a pretty good MGS movie. But I think game adaptations need an episodic structure rather than a movie to do them justice.