Computer Games Influenced by Television: Westworld, Game of Thrones, and More

In a production landscape where computers and green screens can be used to create scenarios in TV shows without being on-set, it’s natural that interactive media would try to get a cut from popular TV tropes.

We could also argue that it’s the other way around. Let’s decide that it’s a mutually beneficial symbiosis.

Both when you’re playing a computer game and when you’re watching a TV show, you do draw from your collective knowledge of the genre you’re experiencing.

This will make you think how something is similar to something else you have seen. Let’s dive in and compare a few cases!

Shows That Have Influences Games:

1. Westworld (HBO) 2016  vs. Fallout 4 (Bethesda Game Studios) 2015.

Synthetic androids are being built to help humankind and then something goes utterly wrong.

Predating those works is the 1973 film Westworld by Michael Crichton.

While the Bethesda’s synth-production line is very similar to the HBO’s Delos host assembly line, the core likeness in Fallout 4 really comes from a feature film, Mad Max (1979).

2. Game of Thrones (HBO) 2011 vs Skyrim TES:V by Bethesda Game Studios 2011.

The two productions share the idea of a fantasy world with dragons and different forces fighting for control of power.

The novel A Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin was published in 1991, while The Elder Scrolls: Arena was released in 1994 by Bethesda Softworks.

One way computer games try to be more than they are is by presenting themselves as live action productions. TES V: Skyrim Cinematic Trailer isn’t very far from the promotion quality of Game of Thrones Season 1 trailer.

3. Person of Interest (CBS) 2011 vs Watch Dogs, (Ubisoft) 2014.

Person of Interest, Season 1 Episode 3 (2011) “Mission Creep,” Jim Caviezel as John Reese.

When we follow tech and IT savant Harold Finch and his AI, or rather SI, The Machine, we get to meet former military John Reese, and a group of vigilantes fighting crime. They are all under the supervision of The Machine, who calculates victims and perpetrators, primarily in New York City. The Machine can access any phone, surveillance camera, or computer to aid it in calculating outcomes from actions taken.

In Watch Dogs, we have Chicago as center stage of the plot with cOS as all-seeing supercomputer. In the game, you can hack anything connected to the web.

Both productions are about how technology can expose you and help you or stop you.

The likeness is striking.

Games That Could Easily Become Television Shows

4. Quantum Break

Sometimes it can be hard to know if it’s a game or a TV show. Quantum Break (2016) by Remedy Entertainment and Microsoft Games, starring Shawn Ashmore, Dominic Monaghan, and Aiden Gillen could be a neat set-up for a TV show.

Follow Jack Joyce (Shawn Ashmore) who has time-altering powers as he finds himself in a research experiment. The game is in part a live action TV show, and in part gameplay.

Often, TV segments are used as trailers to games. Here, the segments have equal weight as the game.

5. Halcyon

This production by SyFy is created to be experienced via Virtual Reality segments by Secret Location production company (2016).

During ten three-minutes episodes and five VR crime-scenes, you can solve a murder mystery. You are aiding Jules Dover (Lisa Marcos, Shadowhunters) a detective of the VR Crime Unit.

In fact, the short episodes wrap it up to be just one episode of a TV show.

But as a concept it shows the way you could experience TV. You decide where you want to look in the scenes.

6. Detroit: Become Human

Detroit: Become Human, from Quantic Dream, is an upcoming title (2017) which shows how real a game can look.

Kara is an android who we will be following. She will be portrayed by Valorie Curry (The Following, House of Lies).

Welcome to the future!

Do you agree that the genres of computer games and television are blending together? Or, have we just been lucky to find those examples?

What games connected to TV shows did we overlook in our dive down the virtual rabbit hole? Comment below, and be sure to be on the look for those little things that remind you of something you’ve seen before!