The relationship between video games and other forms of popular media has always been a difficult one. When an upcoming video game is being based on a film, it is very likely to turn out a tacked-on experience that has little going for it other than the familiarity of the characters and setting. And while we may have seen the occasional exception to this rule over the years with high quality-titles such as Goldeneye 007 and Chronicles of Riddick, the 'movie-game', anno 2012, generally still seems to be a recipe for mediocrity. The reverse application of this concept - basing a film on a popular video game - has hardly been more successful. The 1993 film adaptation of Super Mario Bros. is universally regarded as a disaster, and while the Mortal Kombat films have at least had a cult following, there are few who would deny their glaringly low production quality.

A more recent development is the intermingling of video games and literature. The phenomenon itself is not entirely new: a video game based on Terry Pratchett's Discworld already appeared in 1995, and there are undoubtedly even older examples of likewise titles to be found. But the appearance of literature-inspired games only stopped being sporadic in more recent years. Here, the connection again works both ways. There has been an increasing number of novels based on popular video games, but we have also seen quite a few video games that took their inspiration from works of literature.

The trend of releasing a (series of) novel(s) set in the same universe as a video game was popularised - in my own experience, at least - by Halo, and soon spread to other franchises, such as Gears of War, Mass Effect and even the lesser-known S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series. Like with film-based games, the popularity of the original product (in this case, the video game) is like a double-edged sword: on one hand, there is a large group of gamers who are already familiar with the franchise's universe, and are thus more likely to have an immediate interest in a book based on it. However, catering to this very specific group of people also means that the chances of someone who has not played the game being interested in the book are very slim. In short, the success of the book depends, to a large extent, on the popularity of the video game it is based upon.



Literature-based video games, like Cryostasis, can be very good in their own right

Fortunately, the second variant, that of literature-based video games, seems to be less restricted by a limited 'install base', and, as such, has much more potential of being successful based on its own merit. This increased sense of flexibility is caused mainly by the fact that a lot of these games appear to be marketed towards a larger group of people, which becomes apparent when you observe how they interpret the work they are inspired by much more liberally. The brilliant Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason, for example, tells an allegorical story that runs parallel to a fairytale written by Maxim Gorsky, but is set in an entirely different time and geographical location. The original fairytale, The Flaming Heart of Danko, is still told through scrap notes found while playing the game, but the events in the game itself are distinct enough to confirm that the game is fully capable of standing on its own, thus preventing the player from getting the idea that he will not fully understand the game if he is unfamiliar with the story.

Even with more direct video game adaptations of literature, there remains a certain distance between the game and the novel. Metro 2033, for instance, covers only a part of the novel of the same name by Dimitry Glukhovsky, and instead uses only story fragments that can be turned into interesting gameplay sequences. As a result, the game, while not showcasing nearly the same amount of depth in terms of its characters or philosophical undercurrent, has successfully utilised the book's setting to make for a gameplay experience that stands on its own. The fact that the developers of Metro 2033 were fully aware of the intrinsic merits of the game became apparent when they chose to not emphasise its literary inspiration too extensively in the marketing: the novel is not mentioned in the launch trailer, nor on the game case. Compare this to the prominent text on the front cover of the Gears of War novel Aspho Fields, "The official prequel to the award-winning video game", and it is obvious that one of these products relies a lot less on the power of its respective franchise than the other.


The Gears of War novels in general are not too subtle about the merits of the games

The difference in nature between literature-based video games and video game-based literature may be caused by the fact that, when making entertainment, it is much easier to capitalise upon the strengths of the video game medium than those of the literature medium. The plot is less essential in a video game, so a developer that uses a book as inspiration has a great amount of liberty in deciding which elements he chooses to use in his video game. The aforementioned Metro 2033 game, for instance, has a world created after that of the novel, with the choking atmosphere to match, while only following the central points of the plot and omitting many details that were mentioned in the book. The developers had, furthermore, complete liberty in deciding upon the game's core mechanics, and virtually all other aspects that make a video game good.

Literature, however, is much more than mere entertainment. It is not just the core structure of a novel that makes it interesting, but especially its ability to transmit complex ideas, themes and topics. When a novel is set in a world with many predetermined characteristics, it is already much harder for an author to approach whatever theme he has in mind in a natural way. Moreover, we must not forget that video game literature is much like 'movie-games' in the sense that it is often born out of commercial motives. With this, I do not wish to imply that commercially-driven literature cannot be good (Dostoyevsky wrote his magnum opus Crime & Punishment to pay off his debts, for example), but it does leave an author with much less space to manoeuvre in when there is a clearly determined and specific target audience to cater to. After all, the best literature tends not to be the most accessible, and accessibility is typically what the publisher of a video game-based game will aim for.

Personally, I am much more interested in literature-based video games than in video game-based literature, as the former has much more potential to contribute to the meaningful development of its respective medium. Both of the aforementioned exemplary games, Cryostasis and Metro 2033, have showcased some comparatively excellent storytelling, which was made possible by their ability to capitalise upon certain aspects of literature, while not being obliged to model themselves entirely after it.


The video game adaptation of Metro 2033 shows that less can sometimes mean more.

However, it is not the aim of this article to dismiss the merit of the video game novel. They can contribute greatly to expanding the lore of a video game universe, seeing as a book simply allows for much more elaboration of something that may have been merely referenced to in the corresponding video game. As such, they open up a whole new perspective for gamers who just cannot get enough of the universe of their favourite video game. True, it may take a long, long while before any game-inspired piece of literature will rank among the absolute finest that the medium has to offer, but even with the obvious and seemingly inevitable limits that come with being geared towards a niche audience, they can certainly be a valuable asset to the enrichment and expansion of a video game franchise.