10 Best TV Shows Based On Video Games

Riot Games marked its 10th anniversary in 2019 with the release of its TV series in association with the French animation studio Fortiche. Despite the bad reputation associated with some of its players, Riot’s League of Legends remains one of the most popular multiplayer battle games with over 170 million subscribers worldwide. However, the highlight of the show was its top-quality cinematics, accompanied by a well-written script and A-level voice actors.

The show is largely centered around two sisters, Violet ‘Vi’ and Powder ‘Jinx’, whose lives are drastically changed after a trip to rob an apartment in the neighboring affluent city of Piltover goes horribly wrong. Unlike the game’s generally violent battle scripts, the show humanizes the characters, turning them into relatable examples of what unmanaged grief and abandonment can cause. Millions flocked to Netflix to watch both seasons of the show, which made it the most-watched series on Netflix around the world for weeks.

When it was released on Paramount Plus in 2024, Knuckles became the most-watched Paramount Original series, beating the likes of Yellowstone. The miniseries continues to enjoy favorable numbers in its second year on the platform, a testament to the enduring love video game and animated series fans have for Knuckles the Echidna. In the series, Knuckles, the Sonic Hedgehog video game hero, now on Earth, works with Wade Whipple, a dim-witted deputy sheriff with abandonment issues, to stop an unscrupulous underground agency from stealing his power.

Idris Elba’s voice acting as Knuckles brings the video game hero to life, making him sound ferocious but still humane, which is exactly how he is presented in the games. Adams Pally also puts up a compelling performance as Wade, making the miniseries funny but still intense, which is an interesting combination. The mixture of animation and live-action makes Knuckles an eccentric series, with its popularity now making it a long-term project at Paramount. A second series is now in production, with Idris Elba reprising the role of Knuckles, and expectations are still high.

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Konami’s gothic world of vampires and vampire hunters has spawned some of the most popular video games in the world since the 1980s. The franchise would have also seen one of the earliest TV series based on a video game as plans to turn Castlevania into a series started in 2005. The series eventually materialized after Netflix joined the project in 2015. The first series, which ran for four seasons until 2021, follows Trevor Belmont (Richard Armitage), a descendant of monster hunters, as he tries to stop Dracula and his demons from wiping out humanity in Wallachia.

Fans immediately fell in love with Castlevania, mostly because of the perfect world-building and pacing as well as Richard Armitage’s voicing Trevor. The series retains a 100% RT score, which explains the depth of creativity that went into its development. A sequel series, Castlevania: Nocturne, set in 1700s France, was equally positively received, making this one of the most successful shows based on a video game.

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Capcom’s Resident Evil remains the most popular survival horror game franchise in the world, having sold over 160 million copies. It also holds the record as the highest-grossing video game film franchise of all time after Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City grossed a whopping $1.2 billion in 2021. It is, therefore, not strange that Netflix decided to gamble on a live-action series with Lance Reddick at the helm in 2022. With seven films and a TV series based on it, Resident Evil has now become synonymous with reviving the zombie film genre in its own right.

The series focuses on Albert Wesker and his children as they grapple with life in the city before and after the apocalypse. Despite the huge investment in the project, the script was poorly written, leading to backlash from fans. Unlike the film, the series also failed to win over the game’s vast audience, forcing Netflix to cancel after just one season. The show still remains one of the best-executed live-action TV series based on a video game. Lance Reddick’s performance in the multiple roles of Wesker and his clones remains the highlight of the show.

Sony’s Twisted Metal has been the best-selling car combat game since PlayStation was launched, which explains the confidence the studios had when they decided to turn the game into a TV series. For the perfect script, the studios tapped the A-team of Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, who wrote Deadpool. The series is set in the post-apocalyptic USA where most of the countryside is overrun by criminals, leaving civilization to a few independent city-states that serve the interests of corrupt elites. At the heart of the action is John Doe (Anthony Mackie), a delivery driver with amnesia, who gets a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to become a citizen in the state of New San Francisco if he delivers a valuable package across the wasteland.

Mackie’s performance, coupled with his chemistry with Stephanie Beatriz who plays John Doe’s sidekick, Quiet, produces the ultimate high-octane comedy show. The series was an instant Hit on Peacock, garnering over 400 million watch minutes on its opening weekend. As expected, the show was renewed for a second season with Mackie and Beatriz set to reprise their roles, and expectations for the show are still high.

Gangs of London was first released by London Studios on PlayStation in 2006. The game gained a significant following over the years as many players love its GTA-style design where a player can choose a gang they like and enter the London Underground. As expected, extreme violence was always going to be a major concern, owing to the nature of the game, but Gareth Evans and Matt Flannery did a great job in recreating an authentic premise for the show that mirrors both the city of London and the game.

The show follows wars between multiple criminal organizations in London as everyone fights for control after the sudden death of the former London Crime Boss, Finn Wallace. Now in its third season, Gangs of London became an instant hit both on SKY and AMC, making it one of the most-watched British crime dramas of all time. Joe Cole as Sean Wallace (the ambitious but volatile son of the former crime boss) and Sope Dirisu as Elliot (an undercover cop that infiltrates the London crime world) are the highlight of the show, embodying the spirit of the most loved characters in the game.

Upon its release in 2013, Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us sold over 4 million copies worldwide in four days and has now reached over 30 million copies, becoming one of the most transformative console games of the 21st century. It wasn’t surprising when Playstation decided to make it into one of the most expensive TV shows ever created. By retaining Neil Druckman, who directed the games, in the production team, the joint effort created what is by far one of the best-adapted video-game-based TV shows ever. Just like in the game, the show’s storyline follows Joel (Pedro Pascal) as he escorts an immune girl, Ellie (Bella Ramsey), across a post-apocalyptic USA ravaged by bandits, cannibals, and zombies.

Pascal and Ramsey have a gripping father-daughter chemistry which makes the show attractive even for viewers who haven’t played the game. The show was an instant hit at HBO, earning a whopping 834 million minutes in watch time to beat a record previously set by House of the Dragon. Besides the show’s excellent visuals and pacing, its faithfulness to the source material is the real highlight feature of The Last of Us.

Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, who created Westworld, are the creative minds behind Amazon Prime Video’s Fallout. The show is based on Interplay’s long-running video game that re-imagines modern America as a wasteland overrun by criminals and mutated creatures after a nuclear war with China. This is another show whose faithfulness to the source material won over a big portion of the game’s fan base. The show also easily integrates nongamers with its funny nonlinear plot that builds a gripping storyline out of the game’s dystopian world. The perfect balance of comedy, action, and mystery gives viewers a dose of everything that the game is about without distorting the flow, making it one of the best-executed shows based on a video game. Its instant renewal for a second season was, therefore, almost certain.

At the center of the show are three main characters from different backgrounds whose paths collide in the most coincidental of circumstances, forcing them to become a team against the wasteland’s many devilish threats. Ella Purnell plays Lucy, a naive bunker dweller who ventures onto the surface to rescue her father, who has been kidnapped by raiders. On the surface, she meets Maximus (Aaron Motem) a squire for the surface vigilante group known as the Brotherhood of Steel and the true star of the show, Cooper ‘The Ghoul’ Howard, a mutated survivor of the blast who has now becom a gunslinging bounty hunter.

This is another show set in a post-apocalyptic world where humanity is on the brink of extinction, and the game’s main character has to save the day. Upon its release; Halo became the most viewed premiere show on Paramount +, beating a record previously set by Yellowstone prequel, 1883. The second season was an even more faithful adaptation of the game than the first one, although it didn’t hit the same high viewership numbers, forcing Paramount to cancel the show. The show was apparently being shopped around to other streamers to redeem it for a third season, but nothing concrete has come up so far.

Halo follows the game’s main character, Master Chief Petty Officer John 117, an enhanced spartan soldier tasked with protecting humanity from an alliance of Alien races known as the Covenant. Apart from a few cringe moments in the script, the show has all the qualities of a well-executed idea, including top-quality costumes. Pablo Schreiber and Shabana Azmi deliver the show’s highlight performances. Unfortunately, the show was canceled before covering the most exciting phase of the game series, but it is still a top contender for one of the best video-game-to-series adaptations.

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The genius of Andrzej Sapkowski, the writer of The Witcher book series, was creating a medieval fantasy world with politics, magic, and monsters with virtually no boundaries. His writing leaves so much room for creativity since he didn’t even release a map for The Continent, the fictional world in which all the action takes place. His writing has allowed multiple games to be developed, selling over 70 million copies over the years. When Netflix picked up The Witcher for a TV series, they had to create something that remained faithful to Sapkowski’s world without alienating the fans of the different video games, and their execution was incredible.

The Witcher now competes with the likes of Game of Thrones as one of the best classical TV series of all time. At the heart of the series is Geralt of Rivia, a monster hunter with enhanced powers who is pulled into the politics of the Continent when he accidentally becomes the adoptive father of Princes Ciri of Cintra (Freya Allan). His love interest, Yennefer of Vengerberg (Anya Chalotra), is one of the most powerful mages on the land, and the three of them are forced to become the unlikeliest of families. Henry Cavil aced the lead role for the first three seasons before his sudden exit, forcing Netflix to cast Liam Hemsworth in the role for the final two seasons.