Where are all the good Stephen King games?

Where are all the good Stephen Male monarch games?

The existent terror was trying to unearth a decent adaptation

A gravestone in a moonlit cemetery. The inscription reads "George Stark, 1985-1991. Not a very nice guy."

Halloweekend is most upon u.s. and sitting on my coffee tabular array is my battered one-time paperback copy of Skeleton Coiffure, a 1985 drove of brusk horror stories by Stephen Male monarch. Back in my wild teenage years I binged King's entire back-catalogue of published fiction, and now that information technology'south been long enough for me to have forgotten most of the details, I'chiliad treating myself to some selective re-reads. Fair to say some of his stuff hasn't aged brilliantly, but despite many rough edges he undeniably remains i of my all-fourth dimension favourite authors. I am, after all, a cocky-confessed horror nerd.

My choice of Skeleton Crew for this Halloween's reading material wasn't random, every bit it opens with King'south 1980 novella The Mist. I peculiarly wanted to revisit this story because, well, in case you tin't tell, I really like video games; and The Mist is one of surprisingly few King stories to have received a video game adaptation.

I find this and then surprising because sooner or later on, any fifty-fifty moderately successful author tends to run across their piece of work adapted into other media. Though movies might still exist the default, we're increasingly seeing popular books beingness retold as prestige Tv set shows; big-upkeep audio dramas; and, of course, video games. You lot only demand to look at the success of The Witcher series to see that there are serious possibilities for games based on books. This is perhaps peculiarly truthful for genre fiction, though some more "literary" novels have been adapted into video games as well, such as last year'due south interactive fiction take on Orwell'south Animate being Farm.

Stephen King is more than only moderately successful. In fact, he's amongst the bestselling living novelists. Furthermore, he's an outspoken advocate for new entertainment technologies who will famously sell the accommodation rights to his stories for a single dollar. So you'd recall the market place would be flooded with everything from sprawling open-world Night Belfry RPGs to Christine skins in racing games. But really, there'south next to cypher.

King'southward brief and (the testify suggests) unhappy human relationship with video games adjusted from his books began in 1985, with a text adventure game closely based on The Mist. A piece of work of text-based interactive fiction seems like a fairly rubber way to adapt a popular work of prose, and indeed the game was relatively well-received.

The interactive version of The Mist is pared downward considerably from King'due south 150 page novella. Particularly noticeable are the excision of the original story's ho-hum-burn set-upwardly where several major characters are introduced; and the absence of the protagonist'south young son, who is rapidly shunted off-screen instead of being a significant presence in the action. The game opens with the titular mist rolling over a modest Maine boondocks and the monsters within get-go to wreak their havoc within the first couple of paragraphs. Simply, as the saying goes, the story has good bones, and the skeleton is still clearly visible, especially afterwards the rushed opening gives manner to a pretty true-blue recreation of the original, with several sections of Male monarch's lush descriptive prose retained verbatim.

The opening screen of a text adventure game. The prose describes a teenage boy running into a supermarket screaming that his friend has been killed by "the mist", and an ensuing panic among the customers inside. — Congenital in the best game engine there is, and then I'm told! Unreal Engine 5 looks pretty absurd as well though.

Text adventure games are, of grade, terrifically retro now, but I did have fun with this ane. I can see why it was regarded positively in its fourth dimension for its action-survival feel, even if one element that's very much absent from the game is any real sense of dread in the face of The Mist's cosmic horrors. Unfortunately, this moderately successful first foray into video games for King would also exist the loftier indicate.

It's probably worth clarifying before nosotros motility on to other examples that Stephen Rex never seems to have been particularly easily-on with any of the video games that bear his name. In an interview with Retro Gamer Magazine, The Mist's caput author Raymond Benson (himself an author, hence perhaps the unexpectedly high quality of the finished production) recalled that his sole chat with King revealed a existent lack of involvement in the projection on the creator'southward part.

Even less likely to deport the King of Horror's own fingerprints are those video games released as tie-ins to movies based on his work. The Running Human being is a 1989 beat-em-upwardly more properly attributed to the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie than Male monarch's original short novel, on which the moving picture was merely loosely based to begin with. And the movie The Lawnmower Man — which was technically adjusted twice as a video game in the mid-'90s, as an interactive movie for PC and a platformer for consoles — bears so trivial resemblance to the brusk story it'south named for that to even call information technology an adaptation of Male monarch'south work feels like a existent stretch.

A man with mower blades for a mouth chews up all in his path. — Weirdly enough though, this one scene from The Lawnmower Man actually is in the book.

Truthfully, it's unlikely that King had any control over the movies' IP by the fourth dimension these tie-in games were made. All the same if you dismiss them, you literally halve the catalogue of official Stephen King video games. Information technology's already a meagre option, and King fans hungry for interactive spooks have chewed over every nibble on the table.

Rex probably did sign off on The Night Half, a 1992 point-and-click adventure game based on his novel of the same name, because "A Stephen King Thriller" appears right there on the title screen. Though in this case the game is nominally unconnected to the film adaptation released the following twelvemonth, it does actually contain some stills from the picture, so I have my doubts.

A newspaper clipping from an early '90s point-and-click game. Headline reads "Local Author Reveals Secret Identity". — By amazing coincidence, the two people pictured hither did actually star in the moving picture version.

Regardless of the truth, this one certainly advertised itself as a directly adaptation of King's novel and, if you thought The Mist had established this every bit the better formula, you'd exist disappointed. The Night Half is infamous as 1 of the worst point-and-click adventures of all time, and as a fan of the genre, I tin can confirm that it's upwards against some pretty stiff competition. This, for me, is the biggest missed opportunity, because The Dark Half feels similar information technology had the most promise: a potent choice of gameplay style to fit the story, just the correct amount of adherence to the source fabric… and yet it bombed peradventure the hardest of all.

The next 5 years or so were completely devoid of Male monarch video game adaptations, and honestly y'all can see why he was not bad to leave well plenty alone. His concluding foray into official video games to appointment came all the way back in 2000, with the release of Stephen King's F13. This baffling collection of random horror wallpapers, screensavers, and sound effects mainly exists to justify selling a CD-ROM containing the full text of one of King'due south short stories, showcasing his early back up of the ebook format (hence, I assume, his name really appearing in the title this time). But it just barely qualifies as a video game likewise, thank you to its inclusion of three generic horror clicker games.

Skeletons popping out of their graves in a moonlit graveyard. — Based on that famous story where the guy kept score of how many skeletons he'd dilapidated with a shovel.

F13 was widely ridiculed past reviewers and, as the man himself ofttimes ominously says well-nigh characters who are definitely near to die off-page: no game developers e'er saw Stephen King again.

With a back catalogue like the ane listed to a higher place, it would be difficult to blame King if he was wary of dipping a toe back into the video game market, after basically having the whole foot stripped to the os by piranhas on one-half a dozen previous occasions. These days, the just mode to play any of these games is to dig out some seriously one-time engineering science or visit a potentially-dodgy abandonware site that hosts them in-browser.

Only honestly, if y'all desire to go spooky with a Stephen King video game this Halloween, you'll nearly certainly have more than fun checking out one of the many, many really good games out there today that bear his influence. The makers of Half-Life, Silent Hill, Alan Wake, and and so many others accept acknowledged Stephen King as a major source of inspiration, and the list of Stephen King easter eggs in games ranging from just about every indie championship to the likes of Fallout and Far Cry is as nearly equally long as 1 of his own door-stopper novels.

Trevor from GTAV showcasing his "Overlooked" jacket and shirt outfit. — Speaking of easter eggs, I almost Overlooked Trevor! That'southward never a practiced idea...

The official tie-ins are more likely to induce unintended giggles than shivers downwardly your spine. But in my mind, the real Stephen King video games are those affectionate homages made past developers who captured the spirit of King'southward writing, rather than over-relying on the marketability of a famous name.