10 Video Games Inspired By Classic Literature | Screen Rant
When not drawing inspiration from original concepts, video games have often looked to film and television for their structure and themes, but there are certain occasions where a developer might look to the literary world to craft a new virtual adventure. While there are plenty of games inspired by the likes of Dune or The Lord of the Rings, there are plenty that draw from what most scholars consider literary classics.
Authors like Homer, Dante, and even Mark Twain and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle have had their characters pulled off the page and into the video game world. Anyone can benefit from the classics, even in a virtual setting.
When he's not terrorizing the Harkers or locking horns with his nemesis, Van Helsing, Count Dracula is making life all sorts of hard for the Belmont clan. Castlevania might look like an homage to classic horror movies, which it is, but it also comes with a few sprinkles of literary flavor in some of its design, characters, and references.
Not only does the series continuously reference Bram Stoker's Dracula, but there are nods to other horror works as well, such as Frankenstein's monster, and Castlevania III's Grant is also a character the player meets in a tower, a la Quasimodo. Simply put, it's a horror fan's dream.
On the subject of horror and dreams, Edgar Allan Poe is an author whose work truly needs more representation in video games. However, there is one title that would certainly garner the attention of the author himself, and that's The Dark Eye.
The game is a first-person survival horror experience drawing narratives from Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart, Mask of the Red Death, and Bernice, with elements taken from The Premature Burial, Annabel Lee, and To Helen. Known for its gothic presentation and uncanny valley nature from its stop-motion characters, it's one PC title that will keep a few uneasy gamers up at night.
In retrospect, an RPG party consisting of the characters from the Merry Old Land of Oz works surprisingly well. In this reimagining of The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy, the Scarecrow, and the rest of her friends are transformed into a party on a quest for the Great and Powerful Oz to defeat the game's four witches.
There are elements from both the classic movie from MGM and the series from L. Frank Baum, but it still maintains its own personality. While the use of a trackball might throw some players off, this DS JRPG is great for those just getting into the genre.
American McGee's Alice gave gamers a twisted version of Wonderland, diving into psychological horror as well as dark fantasy. While the original game was a cult classic to be sure, its sequel was one that incorporated many more psychological elements, as well as more characters from the Lewis Carroll novels.
Along with characters like the Mad Hatter, March Hare, and Cheshire Cat from the previous games, Alice has new encounters with other Wonderland citizens who've been twisted, like the Walrus and the Carpenter, the Mock Turtle, and others. The books were dark, to begin with, and American McGee only went full circle.
A fan-favorite amongst those in the hack-and-slash community, Dante's Inferno reimagines the Rennaissance poet as a knight of the crusades who must save his beloved Beatrice from the clutches of the devil when he steals her away to be his unholy bride. As well as giving gamers one of the most horrifying and imaginative takes on Hell, it pulls much of its dialogue and visuals directly from the Divine Comedy.
Like in the book, Dante descends into the nine circles of Hell, rides on the back of a giant demon, and has a final confrontation with Lucifer in Lake Cocytus. Accompanied by the ghost of Virgil, Dante hacks and slashes his way through a horde of demons and monsters to save his wife and atone for his own sins. Simply put, it's a great hack-and-slash game with a literary flavor.
Greek myths seem to be a wellspring of video game inspiration, but the original God of War trilogy is the poster child for the concept. Taking influence from classic tales like The Iliad, The Odyssey, and The Golden Fleece, as well as a few notes of 300, Kratos's saga was certainly one of mythic proportions.
From blinding cyclopses to invoking the wrath of the gods, Kratos performs similar feats to the characters that came before him. While he's no Odysseus, he would give Leonidas some serious competition in the warrior department.
While God of War might be the prime example of mythological video games, Fenyx Rising will get the attention of more scholarly types. Fenyx is a born storyteller, much like Homer. In fact, there are several direct references to the Homeric texts scattered throughout the game.
References to Odysseus, Achilles, Helen of Troy, and more are what give Fenyx Rising a more true-to-form flavor. It's one thing to feature gods and monsters, but having direct references to characters from classic works is going the extra mile.
Sherlock Holmes is no stranger to the stage, screen, or even video game industry, but his most recent appearance is one that tries to up the ante in a narrative sense, putting players in the shoes of the iconic detective as a young man rather than the studious professional seen in other media.
In this origin story for Doyle's most famous character, players will put their own powers of deduction to the test as they play Sherlock in one of his first cases. A mix of action and mystery gives the title more of a personality than the average crime-solving game, and the first chapter is sprinkled heavily with references to the original Holmes canon.
Don't be fooled by its modern shooter appearance; there's much more going on with Spec Ops: The Line than meets the eye. While it might appear to be the standard military-based shooter, it's actually a cleverly disguised adaptation of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
Drawing inspiration from both the original novel and the film, Apocalypse Now, which still holds up in many ways, the game sees a team of soldiers on the search for a mysterious colonel in an unforgiving environment. While the jungles are traded for the sands of a ruined Dubai, the same structure of the novel and references to Kurtz and Conrad make up several key points of the game.
Think of this 3DS gem as a steampunk answer to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, as it turns famous literary characters into special agents under Abraham Lincoln and Queen Victoria. There are over a dozen different playable characters to build a team of heroes to fight an alien menace.
The plot concerns a team consisting of literary characters like Tom Sawyer, Dorothy Gale, and John Henry fighting against an alien invasion of horrors from the works of H.P. Lovecraft. It's an action-strategy game with a unique premise, design, and flavor that should garner any bookworm's attention.