When I'm playing Arc Raiders, one of the things I'm most struck by is just how cinematic it is. I'm creeping through sand-swept streets at night as gunshots ring out in the distance and flares start flying, then all of a sudden a Rocketeer starts hounding me in and out of houses, and I narrowly escape down a subway. It's impressive, especially for a multiplayer game.
Some creative players took advantage of this and traded guns for binoculars, making incredible on-field reporting and even short films, all recorded inside the game—no CGI or greenscreen required.
I suppose it was only a matter of time, then, until Hollywood tried to capitalise on Arc Raiders' sudden success. As Embark Studios' CEO Patrick Söderlund explains in a recent interview with GamesBeat's Dean Takahashi, the team has already received offers to adapt gaming's latest hit to the big screen, even though it's barely even two months old at this point.
"I can't tell you how many companies have reached out to us wanting to make a TV series or movie out of this IP", Söderlund says, without naming any names. Söderlund goes on to clarify, "We don't mind doing that, it would be fun. But it has to be done in the right way. And I think the IP fits quite well with something like that."
Arc Raiders' retro-futuristic, post-collapse, scary murder bot vibes are certainly intriguing enough and well-suited to the other mediums, but for me, it's no doubt the intense shootouts juxtaposed with oftentimes silly social interactions that make it special. How you'd ever capture that in a TV show or movie is beyond me, but that's probably why I have no stake in this. You can't have proximity chat in an adaptation, after all.
Söderlund finishes by explaining that, despite all the offers, "We have a team of writers at Embark, but we don't have anyone working on a TV or film adaptation yet."
That last part—the "yet"—is doing a lot of the heavy lifting there, particularly given Söderlund's enthusiasm. Plus, it seems like every man and his dog has a game adaptation in the works right now, from ongoing The Last of Us and Fallout TV shows to promising oddities like a SIFU movie from John Wick's Chad Stahelski, a Death Stranding live-action film, animated film, and anime, and even a Stray movie. Yes, the 'hopepunk' game about the cat in a cybercity. Add it all up, and an Arc Raiders film or TV show of some sort feels almost inevitable.
