While the era of movie tie-in games launching every other week has long since ended, sometimes it’s great to look back on the era of tie-ins and find the most interesting games. Not games that were content to just retell the events of the film, albeit as a 3D platformer or beat ‘em up, but to genuinely expand and develop the events and lore of the film.
Even though a good portion of tie-in games are ultimately considered non-canon, sometimes the ideas and expansions they offer make for interesting companions to the original film, so let’s look at some movie tie-in games that explain vital scenes in the movies they’re related to.
10The Godfather - Planting The Horse’s Head
An Offer You Can’t Refuse
EA’s tie-in to the iconic crime drama series might have been little more than an attempt to cash in on the success of the Grand Theft Auto series, but 2006’s The Godfather game was a decent addendum to the events of the movie. The game follows a created character, Aldo Trapini, who’s recruited into the Corleone family after watching their father die.
Though The Godfather game told its own story with original characters, the main campaign featured plenty of intersections with the events of the movie, with Aldo being responsible for a lot of the major moments in the film. For example, Aldo drives Don Corleone to the hospital after he’s shot. He then plants the gun in the restaurant bathroom for Micheal Corleone to shoot Sollozzo, and crucially, Aldo is responsible for sticking the horse’s head in Jack Woltz’s bed.
9Enter The Matrix - Niobe & Ghost’s Role In Reloaded
Neo Isn’t The Only One Fighting Agents
The Matrix: Path Of Neo offers around 40 minutes of live-action cutscenes filmed during the development of The Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions, which is still practically unheard of when it comes to tie-in games.
The game starts with Logos crewmates Ghost and Niobe retrieving a package from the lost ship Osiris within the Matrix, tying into one of the Animatrix shorts, the ominously titled The Final Flight Of The Osiris. From there, Ghost and Niobe meet several characters while fighting through the Matrix, before becoming part of Morpheus’ plan to disrupt the Matrix, so Neo can reach “The Source”.
Enter The Matrix also includes a scene with Ghost/Niobe and The Oracle, which gives more lore reasons for why The Oracle’s “avatar” changed going from Reloaded to Revolutions. In reality, this was because original actress Gloria Foster died before her role in Revolutions and Enter The Matrix were filmed, so actress Mary Alice stepped in.
8The Warriors - The Game Sets Up The Whole Movie
Come Out To Play
What do you do as a developer when you’ve just dropped arguably the greatest run of three games ever in GTA 3, Vice City andSan Andreas? According to Rockstar, it’s to make a movie tie-in to the then 25+ year old cult classic film, which sounds like a bit of an odd decision at first glance. Now, 20 years after the game’s release and over 45 years since the film, Rockstar’s take on The Warriors is still incredible.
Not only is it a fun beat ‘em up, but the story that Rockstar crafted actually develops the backstory of not only The Warriors, but New York City’s other gangs too. Starting three months before the night of the film, the game follows Rembrandt’s initiation into The Warriors, their ascent in infamy, before finally receiving the invite to attend Cyrus’ ill-fated sermon to the gangs.
Although some of the cast did return to record new lines for The Warriors, including James Remar as Ajax, Michael Beck as Swan and Dorsey Wright as Cleon, the voice cast also includes a pre-Run The Jewels El-P and a pre-Brooklyn 99 Joe Lo Truglio.
7Tron: Evolution - How Clu Gained Control Of The Grid
Welcome To The Grid Programs
Considering the entire plot of Tron is about being stuck in a video game, it’s not astounding to learn that there’ve been plenty of tie-in games related to Tron. Tron: Evolution serves as a prequel to the events of the movie, explaining how CLU became the ruler of The Grid.
In Tron: Evolution, you control an anonymous program handily titled Anon, working for Kevin Flynn to investigate the rise of ISOs on The Grid. These more complex programs are loathed by the more basic programs on The Grid, creating a lot of discontent that CLU uses to essentially stage a coup, leading to Flynn’s imprisonment/exile he finds himself in at the start of Legacy.
6Reservoir Dogs - How The Heist Went Down
Dog Days
Part of the beauty of Reservoir Dogs film is that you never actually see how the heist, the entire crux of the movie, actually plays out. You only see part of the planning, and the bloody, violent, aftermath as all the different characters start pointing fingers and subsequently guns at each other trying to figure out what went wrong.
Naturally, the video game tie-in decides to hone in on those “missing scenes”, with players controlling different members of the gang as they attempt to survive the botched robbery attempt. While some who love the original movie would argue that it robs some of the mystique of the movie, it’s a smart way of creating a movie tie-in game without manufacturing entirely new scenarios and plotlines.
The Reservoir Dogs game even features multiple endings depending on your Psycho Vs. Professional rating, which is determined by how you take and manage hostages to avoid killing cops. Depending on your rating, Mr Pink can either get killed by the cops, arrested or manages to escape, albeit without the diamonds.
5Fortnite - Palpatine’s Message From Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker
Message Received
Look, calling Fortnite a movie tie-in game for the most part is a bit of a stretch, considering it mainly borrows likenesses from other intellectual properties and dangles them in your face like a set of car keys. Still, that didn’t stop Disney from taking the opportunity to do something different with Fortnite in the lead-up to the release of Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker.
In an in-game live event, Live At Risky Reels, in December 2019, Geoff Keighley, J.J. Abrams and a stormtrooper voiced by Ben Schwartz all descended on Fortnite to hype up the upcoming movie release. They talked, they shared a scene from the film, they bolted, only for the event to end with a message from Darth Sidious declaring a victory for the Sith. Said message is then referenced in the opening crawl of The Rise of Skywalker. Fortnite canon, confirmed.
4The Thing - The Fate Of MacReady
Mac’s Back, Baby
The Thing from 1982 stands as a sterling example of horror sci-fi. Isolated from the rest of the world, a crew finds themselves dealing with a body assimilating alien that’s picking off the team one by one, sowing distrust in the rest of the survivors as they struggle to tell man from monster.
The film ends on a rather dour note of mutual distrust, as with no power, heat or food, MacReady is seemingly left to starve/freeze to death alongside Childs, who mysteriously disappeared moments earlier. The Thing game from 2002 seemingly obliterates any sense of ambiguity from the film though, as the game is set directly after the events of the movie and ends with the player character, Captain Blake, being helicoptered to safety by one R.J. MacReady.
Despite taking the mystery out of the film’s ending, The Thing’s tie-in game was approved by the film’s director John Carpenter, who even has a cameo role in the game. There were even plans for a sequel before the original developers shut down, which could have explained how MacReady survived while Childs froze to death.
3The Chronicles Of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay - How He Got His Eyes
The Eyes Have It
One of the more intriguing aspects of the 2000 sci-fi film Pitch Black is the mystery surrounding Vin Diesel’s Riddick. Part of the film addresses Riddick’s uncanny ability to see in the dark, something that he attributes to a “slam preacher” he met a while back, but the video game The Chronicles Of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay expands on this.
Featuring both Riddick and Johns, the bounty hunter escorting Riddick in the movie, Butcher Bay is a prequel to Pitch Black that gives more context to the feud between the two men, as Riddick tries to escape from the titular prison. During his stay, he encounters another Furyan called Shirah, who states that he’s been blind for too long, unlocking his trademark eyeshine ability. While it’s unclear if eyeshine is a Furyan trait or that Riddick just happens to be special, Butcher Bay reveals there’s more to the story than Riddick was letting on.
2The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King - How Jack Earned His Name
This Is Halloween
If you’re an emo or in any way semi-related to the alternative community, there’s only one true Christmas film, and it’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. Though the original film introduced the denizens of Halloween Town, along with The Pumpkin King Jack Skellington’s role as the leader of the Halloween celebrations, there have been tie-in games that expand the lore of the film.
Even though the film seemingly treats the battle between Jack and Oogie Boogie as the first one, The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King for the Game Boy Advance tells it differently. Set before the events of the movie, this platformer explores the first clash between Jack and Oogie Boogie, along with providing an explanation for how Jack earned the moniker of The Pumpkin King.
The other tie-in, Oogie’s Revenge, was a Capcom-developed game for PS2 and Xbox that essentially placed Jack Skellington into a Devil May Cry game. It’s set after the movie and doesn’t explain anything, but the idea of a Devil May Cry game mixed with The Nightmare Before Christmas is still wild.
1The Lord Of The Rings: The Third Age - Actually, The Fellowship Needed More Help
Frodo Nearly Fumbled The Baggins
Arguably the most famous fantasy tale of all-time, it was only natural that The Lord of the Rings turned into a trilogy of epic blockbuster films. Because it happened in the early 2000s as well, of course said films were going to be turned into tie-in games, with LOTR boasting a wide selection of related games. Both The Two Towers and Return of the King received the tie-in treatment, while Vivendi utilised a deal to publish games based on Tolkien’s literary work instead of the films, leading to platformer The Hobbit launching around the same time.
However, The Third Age is arguably the most interesting tie-in, as it largely depicts The Fellowship as needing all the help they can get. During a lot of the key battles within the series, whether it’s Gandalf versus the Balrog or the battles against The Witch King, victory was only earned thanks to a rabble of unseen, original characters controlled by the player. Even the final battle is only won because this party literally fought the Eye of Sauron, distracting the bad guys enough for Frodo to destroy the One Ring.
