Curated playlist

Video games adapted into films

Assassin's CreedAssassin's Creed began as a Prince of Persia sequel with the prince cut out.
Hitman (franchise)Hitman is a stealth game franchise from the Danish studio IO Interactive, and it began as a deliberately modest idea. Designer Jacob Andersen described the plan like this: "We decided to do a quick game inspired by Hong Kong action…
Halo (franchise)Halo is a military science fiction franchise, and in 1997 its earliest form went by a codename its own programmer was too embarrassed to say aloud. Bungie's team first called the project "Monkey Nuts." Jason Jones could not bring himself…
Pokémon (video game series)The Pokémon video game series has sold more than 515 million units worldwide. That makes it the fourth best-selling video game franchise, behind only the Mario franchise, Call of Duty, and Tetris. It started in 1996, when Pocket Monsters…
UnchartedBy December 2017, the Uncharted series had sold 41.7 million units worldwide. Uncharted is an action-adventure franchise developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Amy Hennig created it. Its heroes are…
Far CryFar Cry, the first-person shooter franchise published by Ubisoft, began life as an island full of dinosaurs. At the Electronic Entertainment Expo in 1999, the German studio Crytek showed a technology demo called X-Isle: Dinosaur Island.…
Prince of PersiaJordan Mechner asked his own brother to play the Prince. For the 1989 game Prince of Persia, Mechner used his brother as the model for the title character. The animation was then built with a technique called rotoscoping, which draws…
Tomb RaiderTomb Raider is a video game franchise that began in 1994 at Core Design, a British studio, and had sold more than 100 million units worldwide by 2024. Its pull was felt almost at once. In late 1996 and early 1997 the band the Prodigy…
Five Nights at Freddy'sFive Nights at Freddy's, known to fans as FNaF, asks its players for one thing: stay alive from midnight until 6 a.m. in a pizza restaurant after closing time. Scott Cawthon created the series, and it has grown from video games into…
Super Mario Bros.Super Mario Bros., Nintendo's 1985 platform game, had only about 20 bytes of cartridge space left once its music was added. Shigeru Miyamoto spent them on a small crown. The crown appears beside the life counter, and only for players who…
Yakuza (franchise)By 2024, Sega reported that the Yakuza series, known in Japan as Like a Dragon, had sold a combined 27.7 million units since its debut in 2005. Those buyers were playing games about organized crime. In the same games they could also sing…
Resident EvilResident Evil was almost named Biohazard, but the name was already taken. A DOS game and a punk band held it.
Street FighterStreet Fighter player Daigo Umehara parried 15 hits in a row with one pixel of health left in 2004.
Final Fantasy VIIFinal Fantasy VII skipped the Nintendo 64 after one big enemy slowed it down.
The Legend of ZeldaAs a boy, Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto walked into a cave carrying a lantern. That memory shaped every dungeon.
Silent HillSilent Hill got its name from translating a Japanese prefecture's name. The title was not crafted for marketing.
Ace AttorneyAce Attorney is a Capcom adventure series in which the hero wins by catching a witness in a lie. In its fictional courts, a trial lasts three days at most. Verdicts usually come back guilty, and the cases the games follow are rare…
Silent Hill (video game)When Silent Hill's composer played his music, the team thought it was a software bug.
Sonic the HedgehogSonic the Hedgehog, a franchise about a blue hedgehog with supersonic speed, had reached 1.77 billion in combined series sales and free-to-play mobile downloads by 2024. Sega counts it as its flagship. Three Japanese developers created it:…
Dragon QuestOver 300 Japanese schoolchildren were arrested for truancy when Dragon Quest III went on sale.
Mortal KombatMortal Kombat began as a planned Jean-Claude Van Damme movie game, but the deal fell through.
WarcraftWarcraft got its name because it "sounded super cool." Blizzard's co-founder said the word had no particular meaning.
Ratchet & ClankRatchet & Clank began with a reptile. Early sketches for the hero of Insomniac Games' new PlayStation 2 adventure showed a reptilian alien. Artists eventually settled on a feline humanoid and gave it a species name, Lombax, which the…
MinecraftMinecraft, the 2011 sandbox game from the Swedish company Mojang Studios, tells its only story through a poem of roughly 1,500 words. The End Poem was written by the Irish novelist Julian Gough. It scrolls past in about nine minutes when a…
Super MarioSuper Mario is a Nintendo platform game series, and in the United Kingdom the wider Mario franchise is recognized by 91% of adults. That makes it the most famous video game franchise there. Shigeru Miyamoto created the series, and its star…
Fate/stay nightFate/stay night began as an unfinished college story. Kinoko Nasu finished only one of its three routes in 1999.
Angry BirdsOn Christmas Day 2011, players around the world downloaded 6.5 million copies of Angry Birds games on that single day. Angry Birds is a franchise created by the Finnish game designer Jaakko Iisalo and owned by Rovio Entertainment. Its…
TekkenIn Tekken, a son throws his father off a cliff, and the father survives to throw him into a volcano.
Gran Turismo (series)Sony turned down Gran Turismo when Kazunori Yamauchi first pitched it in 1992. His small team kept working on it anyway.
Dynasty WarriorsDynasty Warriors began in 1997 as a one-on-one fighting game. Its sequel turned it into a battlefield hit.
Need for SpeedNeed for Speed is a racing franchise that had sold more than 150 million copies by October 2013. That places it among the most successful game series of all time. It began in 1994 with a single game, The Need for Speed. Its latest…
The Exit 8The Exit 8 is a 2023 indie game that asks the player to do almost nothing but walk down one passageway in a Japanese metro station. Its creator works under the name Kotake Create, and is also known as Kotakenotokeke. By August 2025 the…
Final FantasyHironobu Sakaguchi planned to quit games if Final Fantasy failed. The 1987 role-playing game saved Square instead.
Dead or Alive (franchise)A programmer's bet with his bosses launched the Dead or Alive fighting games.
Monster HunterIn Monster Hunter, the hero never levels up. The Hunter has no intrinsic statistics or attributes whatsoever, and nothing about the character grows stronger with experience. Monster Hunter is a Japanese media franchise of fantasy action…
TetrisTetris holds a strange record among video games. It has appeared on at least 70 platforms, more than any other game. Guinness World Records also counts roughly 220 official versions, each with its own music and images. The puzzle was…
Super Mario GalaxySuper Mario Galaxy is a Nintendo platform game in which Mario runs around tiny worlds shaped like ice cream and apples. It appeared on the Wii, and the people building it were not all sure the idea would work. Some feared the technology…
Doom (franchise)Doom is an American media franchise created by five people: John Carmack, John Romero, Adrian Carmack, Kevin Cloud, and Tom Hall. Its hero never receives a proper name. Players call him Doomguy, the Doom Marine, or, in later entries, the…