Games Based on Movies That Are Actually Good

Creative Assembly, previously the Total War studio, put this out in October 2014 and set it fifteen years after Ridley Scott's 1979 film. Its xenomorph runs unscripted; designers unlocked behaviours as it met you so it would never settle into a pattern. Your motion tracker tells you something is close and nothing about whether it is in the vents above you. Best game here, film or no film.

MachineGames, the Wolfenstein studio, shipped this in December 2024 and dropped its story into 1937, between Raiders of the Lost Ark and Last Crusade. First person suits Indy far better than it should. Whip a guard's ankles and he trips onto his back; photograph a puzzle you cannot crack and Indy talks himself toward the answer. Punching fascists has rarely landed this heavily.

Westwood Studios shipped the original in November 1997, and it remains the strangest thing built from Ridley Scott's 1982 film: which characters are replicants gets randomised whenever you start a new game. Run the Voight-Kampff machine on a suspect and your answer may not match a friend's. Nightdive's 2022 remaster drew hard criticism for its new visuals, and the package carries the ScummVM-based Blade Runner Classic as well, so both builds arrive together.

Teyon slotted its 2023 shooter between the 1990 and 1993 films, and Peter Weller returned to give both voice and likeness to Murphy. Nobody expected a licensed first-person shooter to catch Verhoeven's satire, and then it did. Firing the Auto 9 costs no ammo at all, which sounds broken until you feel how slowly the suit turns. Heavy, deliberate, oddly funny.

Lucasfilm Games released this point-and-click in 1989, the same year as the film it adapts, and it treats that film as raw material rather than a checklist of scenes. Score is tracked as an Indy Quotient that carries across playthroughs up to a maximum of 800, so going back to punch a guard you previously outwitted pays you rather than penalising you.

LucasArts built an entire racing game from one sequence of the 1999 film, and by the 2011 Guinness Gamer's Edition it held the record for best-selling sci-fi racer at 3.12 million copies. Repairs run mid-race: hold the button, your pod slows while the engines knit back together, and every wall you clip becomes a bet about your position. The Steam release is that 1999 game.

Aykroyd and Ramis doctored the script and all four original leads voiced themselves, which is why the 2009 release plays like the third film nobody made. Saber Interactive's remaster is what Steam sells now, there being no separate original SKU. Wearing a ghost down, catching it on the capture stream and slamming it about before you drop a trap still beats most licensed combat.

Traveller's Tales adapted all nine Skywalker films into one 2022 package that sold past 3.2 million copies within a fortnight of release. Any trilogy can be started first, in any order, which quietly makes it the best way to show someone the saga backwards. Mumble Mode swaps the voice acting for grunts, and the jokes honestly land harder that way.

Avalanche Studios shipped this in September 2015, months after Fury Road, and it adapts no single film — George Miller was consulted, the story is original, and Gas Town and Thunderdome are about as much familiar furniture as you get. Building the Magnum Opus while Chumbucket bolts parts on from the back is the actual game, and car combat has rarely felt this filthy.

Computer Artworks made a direct sequel to Carpenter's 1982 film back in 2002, and Nightdive returned it in December 2024; the 2002 build is not sold on Steam, so the remaster is what you buy. Squadmates carry a trust level and a fear level at once, and a man who reaches Crack-up will shoot you or himself. Testing your own blood to prove you are human never stops working.

Frontier Developments released this park builder on 9 November 2021, and it holds its slot as a management game rather than as a licence: containment, animal welfare and weather feed into each other, so one fence failing in a storm cascades through the whole park before you can reach it. Chaos Theory mode is a bonus on top, handing you film scenarios to rerun. Goldblum and Bryce Dallas Howard voice their own roles.

Slitherine published The Artistocrats' real-time strategy game in June 2022, and its store page describes a game set in the Starship Troopers film universe — Verhoeven's 1997 picture rather than Heinlein's novel, which is what qualifies it for this list. Holding a line against Arachnid swarms turns entirely on line of fire: place a squad where its bullets reach, or watch the position fold.

Bottom slot, and an honest one: Teyon's 2019 shooter clears the bar for a movie game and not much higher. Critics called it generic; Steam players disagreed loudly enough that the gap is the story. Set in the 2028 future war the first two films barely glimpsed, it lets you sneak and hack Skynet's defences rather than shooting through them. Rough, sincere, worth the weekend.