Summary
Adaptations of any piece of media, regardless of their medium, can sometimes be met with contention from fans of the original—questioning the point of the former’s existence. The notion that films, video games, books, and so on should be enjoyed as originally intended is valid, but adaptations—handled with care and respect for the source material—can act as elevating counterparts.
Horror bookshave served as a source of inspiration for many films, and the same can be done for video games. The player agency that games provide makes them one of the most transformative mediums out there. Where readers are protected from masked killers and grotesque monsters through the pages of a book, players are chased by them down dark and dingy corridors. That’s why these nexthorror books are so perfectly suited for a video game adaptation.
Publisher
Ace Books
Christopher Beuhlman’sBetween TwoFiresfollowsa disgraced knight charged with the protection of an orphaned girl as they travel across medieval France, while it’s caught in the middle of a war between heaven and hell. Villages are ravaged by black plague, the countryside is stalked by bandits and monsters, while the cities are dens of corruption.
Between Two Fireswould serve as the perfect foundation for a dark fantasy RPG that follows in the footsteps ofThe Witcher 3: Wild Hunt—itself based on a book—or theDark Soulsfranchise. Players could take on grim quests and face off against bosses inspired by Beuhlman’s many monstrosities, like the saint statues in Paris who are brought to life through demonic possession, or the horse-sized catfish that lurks in the lake.
An adaptation could even reign in the scale, focusing on a survival horror experience with slower and more grounded gameplay.Similar to the upcoming medieval extraction rogue-ite,Blight: Survival,where players must fight through monsters and bandits in a war-torn land.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
The first book in Jeff VanderMeer’sSouthern Reach Trilogy,Annihilationsees a group of women braving Area-X; a mysterious patch of land that alters the DNA of everything within it. The book is equal parts beautiful and horrifying, describing surreal scenes of nature before flinging animal-hybrid abominations at the reader.
The proof of concept for anAnnihilationadaptation already exists inGSC Game World’sSTALKERfranchise.In those games, players assume the role of Stalkers as they explore the Zone; a land, similar to Area-X, filled with mutants and strange anomalies. Instead of taking the immersive sim route, anAnnihilationadaption could take notes from extraction shooters to set it apart fromSTALKER, framing a narrative around multiple teams entering Area-X like the novel.
Doubleday
Many players still feel the sting of wasted potential that wasRedfall. An Arkane Studios game based on vampires should have been an easy recipe for success, but its half-baked ideas, forgettable story, and buggy launch made it one of theworst games of 2023.
An adaptation of Stephen King’s’Salem’sLothas the potential to ameliorate this wound by providing players with a similar set-up. The book bounces around multiple characters as the seemingly idyllic town of Jerusalem’s Lot is slowly corrupted and overrun by vampires. An adaptation of the book could provide players with whatRedfalldid not; an immersive sim centered on liberating a town from vampires.
Alternatively, it could take a more measured approach, truer to the book’s tone; a survival horror experience in the same vein asResident Evil 7,where the novel’s unsettling atmosphere and gradual rise in tension can be better utilized to truly terrify players.
William Morrow
InJoe Hill’sHorns,Ignatius Perrish, better known as Ig, wakes up after a rough night of drinking to find a pair of horns sprouting from his forehead. After discovering that these horns force whoever he’s speaking with to confess their darkest secrets, Ig sets out to uncover the truth about his beloved’s murder—a case in which he is the primary suspect.
Hornshas the makings of an excellent narrative-focused detective video game in the same style as Telltale’sThe Wolf Among Us. Players could navigate the wreck that is Ig’s life, and learn about the broken relationships he has with his family who, like the rest of his town, aren’t convinced he didn’t murder his girlfriend. Interspersed throughout these conversations, players could dig deeper into a character’s past by using Ig’s horns to pry information from them or, as Ig often does in the novel, learn something they really didn’t want to hear.
1961
MON
Solaris, written by Stanisław Lem, is a sci-fi horror novel that features atruly alien creature. The novel takes place on the planet Solaris, which is mostly covered by a sentient ocean. This ocean is capable of forming intricate patterns on its surface, erecting strange structures the size of buildings, and creating clones of people from the memories of the scientists who dare to study it. When protagonist Kris Kelvin arrives at the research station on Solaris, he finds one of its inhabitants dead and the rest in varying degrees of mental instability.
While the book features many passages focused on philosophical musings around the nature of the ocean, Kris’ paranoia from the belief that he’s constantly being watched and seeing ghosts from his past in between these segments is enough to craft a terrifying survival horror experience.
The adaptability of Lem’s work has already been proven with Starward Industries’The Invincible, a story-driven sci-fi game based on Lem’s book of the same name.
Word Horde
John Langan’sThe Fishermanis both a meditation of grief and a Lovecraftian nightmare. It follows Abe and Dan, two widowers, who hear rumors of Dutchmans Creek, a reservoir in upstate New York that might have a solution to all their woes. As one might expect, the Creek is not what it seems and the two are thrown into tales of myth and horror.
Langan’s novel is told like a fable, with various characters recounting their stories to other characters. It’s a structure that may seem hard to adapt into a video game, but if a potential developer were to focus the scope on certain aspects of the book, there is still the opportunity to create a great adaptation.
Perhaps Abe and Dan’s fishingoutings can be used as the basis of the game, similarly to Black Salt Games’Dredge, providing players with core fishing mechanics that eventually make way for more sinister happenings.
Vintage
Green Hellwith flesh-eating plants is the easiest way to pitch an adaptation ofScott Smith’sThe Ruins.The book follows a group of friends who, after trekking into the jungle to find one of their brothers, become trapped on a mountain with sentient, man-eating plants.
The book is more focused on the characters' desperation and the body horror inflicted by the plants, but a video game spin-off could take a page out ofEndnight Games’The Forest. Players could assume the role of one of these friends and either focus on sandbox survival mechanics or uncover the mysteries behind the plants.
The novel never fully utilizes the mines the friends discover beneath the mountain, nor does it delve into the origin of the plants and the villages the characters encounter before they reach the mountain. A video game adaptation would be a perfect opportunity to expand on the original story.
