10 video games that would make great TV shows

8. Bioshock

If you want a little more dystopian flair in your TV, than Bioshock might be the ticket. This series by 2k Games have received a ton of critical and fan acclaim since the first game hit in 2007,, combining deeply complex sci-fi story elements with lots of moral ambiguity and social commentary. There’s an eerie atmosphere to Bioshock, the first two games of which take place in an underwater city called Rapture that has descended into a technology-fueled madness as people vie for control of ADAM, a substance that can grant people supernatural powers.

Bioshock is a great series with a great plot; the question isn’t whether it would work as a show. The question is where to start.

The first two games, which happen one after the other, detail what happens to the city of Rapture when a man named Jack arrives there in 1960. The sole survivor of a plane crash in the Atlantic, Jack manages to get into the underwater city, and the uncovers all sorts of messed up stuff about it and its founder, Anthony Ryan. There’s a strong element of horror as he goes through the city, seeing all the ways that the struggle for power, both political and supernatural, has twisted the populace.

But then we get to Bioshock: Infinite. The third game in the franchise is actually set in the early 1900s, on the floating city of Columbia. Social commentary is the name of the game here, as Columbia has some disconcertingly timely themes about white supremacy and corruption. To my eye, Bioshock: Infinite would make a really killer show given the current political climate.

And those deeply complex sci-fi elements I mentioned? They link Infinite with the games set in Rapture down the line, so there’s no reason the show couldn’t start with Infinite and work its way up to the original game and beyond.