When you have a Hollywood blockbuster franchise on your hands, it's often the next logical move to branch out into video games. It means introducing new characters, expanding the established lore and narrative, and allowing the opportunity to provide an experience to a whole new audience. Since the 1980s, or sometimes even earlier than that, the biggest movie franchises have put out a lot.
Video games based on popular movie franchises can often be hit or miss, even when original actors reprise their roles. But they're always exciting enough to have us coming back for more and have delivered gems in the process.
We'll be surveying games developed directly from their respective movie franchises rather than ones from broader source material like Batman, Spider-Man, TMNT, or The Lord of the Rings. We'll also factor in arcade games and pinball machines but leave out those still currently in development.
10 🍸 Rocꦉky (Including Creed) - 9
Boxing is a popular sports sub-genre of video games, so the Rocky franchise naturally capitalized on it 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:with a few games even before Punch-Out entered the gaming scene. The first Rocky game was a pinball machine in 1982, followed by the first video game ba﷽sed on Ro𒈔cky 3 titled Rocky Super Action Boxing.
Later Rocky games made it onto consoles like PS2 and GameCube with improved graphics like 2002's Rocky, Rocky Legends, Rocky Balboa, and the 2016 Rocky mobile game. The continuation of the story with Adonis Creed led to new games like the VR Creed: Rise To Glory and Big Rumble Boxing: Creed Champions.
9 ✨ Top Gun - 12
Despite the 36-year gap in the franchise between the original Top Gun and Top Gun: Maverick, there are still more video games for Top Gun than in the entire Rocky frဣanchise. The first Top Gun༒ game launched alongside the 1986 movie from Ocean Software and later saw an NES Konami version the following year. It was followed by the sequel game, The Second Mission, in 1989, and the rest is history.
The early Top Gun games were very rudimentary first-person flight simulators that also offered multiplayer but later transitioned to third-person aerial combat. Though the last official licensed Top Gun game was Hardlock in 2012, games like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Ace Combat and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Microsoft Flight Simulator continue to add content from the Top Gun films.
8 ꦅ Ghostbusters - 19
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Ghostbusters is another iconic movie franchise from the '80s that had many video games across various genres over the decades, including arcade and its latest asymmetrical multiplayer game called 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed. The movie franchise itself has also se𓆉en a revival from Jason Reitman with Ghostbusters: Afterlife.
The original 1984 Ghostbusters Activision game on the NES perfectly brought to life the aesthetics of the horror comedy in an 8-bit fashion. You were even able to drive the Ecto-1 and the catchy theme song was remixed in 8-bit sound. Ghostbusters saw a slew of Game Boy games, movie tie-ins starring the original actors, remasters, and even receiving an expansion in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Lego Dimensions.
7 ꧋ Terminator - 20
Arnold did say "I'll be back" in the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Terminator movies, and he indeed returned in various video game adaptations of the beloved '80s sci-fi franchise. The debut title actually saw a bit of controversy. It was licensed to Sunsoft, a developer that chose a different setting and plot from the film, and therefore lost it and published it as the reworked Journey to Silius.
Bethesda had the first official Terminator DOS video game in 1991, which gave you a first-person POV of the T-800's interface in a 3D-rendered environment. As the films progressed, the games took off. There were multiple across Judgement Day, Terminator 3, and Salvation, including 2019's 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Resistance based on the Future Wars. There was even a crossover game with Robocop in 1993 called Rob꧋ocop Versus The Terminator.
6 Indiana J♓ones - 21
Lucasfilm's 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Indiana Jones certainly doesn't see the same recognition in video games compared to its Star Wars property. However, many Indiana Jones video games are still out there, even 168澳洲幸运5开💮奖网:MachineGame𝔉s taking the helm in more recent years. The earliest is the 1982 Atari 2600 Raiders of the Lost Ark game based on the debut film, which feels more ET Atari than the Indiana Jones you'd expect.
In the '90s and early 2000s came the games from LucasArts that started as point-and-click adventures with Indy, and later evolved into more modern action-adventure games, culminating with the Lego Indiana Jones saga. The influence of Indiana Jones inspired video games like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Tomb Raider and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Uncharted which truly carrieꦐd the torch for the franchise since.
5 ꦡ James Bond 007 - 29
Though based on the spy novels by Ian Fleming, the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:James Bond 007 franchise has constant video game releases coinciding with the films and the current Bond actor. What began as text adventures like Shaken but Not Stirred! and A View To Kill quickly turned into racing games, top-down action, thrilling third-person action adventures, and groundbreaking FPS, particularly 1997's 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Goldeneye 007.
In fact, Goldeneye 007 is now on modern consoles like the Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch. There's also more Bond being developed, including the studio behind Hitman taking on the task, and the last few have featured Daniel Craig as the titular agent. You can play as Craig's version in Quantum of Solace, Goldeneye 2010, Bloodstone, and 007 Legends.
4 🧜 Jurassic Park - 36
With the Jurassic World sequels, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Jurassic Park has become another massive franchise from Stephen Spielberg and one with tons of games. From arcade light gun shooters to pinball machines to the earliest Sega Genesis titles, Jurassic Park has graduated to VR, AR, and management sim games with the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Jurassic World Evolution series.
While 168澳🥂洲幸运5开奖网:many Jurassic Park games stick out as the best, Telltale's 2011 game, Evolution, Lego Jurassic World, and Sega's Jurassic Park: Rampage Edition are all at the top. Telltale's Jurassic Park delivers one of the first narrative-focused episodic adventures, while Lego Jurassic World recaps all the films up to the 2015 sequel in classic Lego style.
3 💜 Alien (Including Predator) - 38 ไ
The Alien and Predator universe had non-stop releases in the last couple of years alone, like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Fireteam Elite, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Predator: Hunting Grounds, and Dark Descent. Among the most important was the survival horror 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Alien: Isolation from Creative Assembly. Not only is it the only one to achieve the original mood from the 1979 film, but the Xenomorph AI became terrifyingly relꦜentless in it.
Like most of the other franchises here, the Alien and Predator series both had mobile launches as well, such as Predators in 2011 to pair with the Robert Rodriguez film and the Alien: Blackout sequel to Isolation. Both saw adaptations of the movies along ඣwith many kinds of Alien Vs. Predator games down the line.
2 ♒ Star Trek - 100+
168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Star Trek has gifted an unbelievable amount of games in addition to the original series, many films, and spin-off television shows. The latest outing is 2023's branching narrative Star Trek: Resurgence from Dramatic Labs, a development team consisting of former Telltale developers. And it also had a VR game in 2017 with Star Trek: Bridge Crew.
Being such a classic series that aired in the '60s, the earliest Star Trek video games can be seen in the 1970s. Since then, it's branched out into diverse genres of games, like FPS in Star Trek: Voyager - Elite Force, aerial combat and flight sims with Klingon Academy, and a video game adaptation of the J.J. Abrams film.
1 Star Wars - 100+ ဣ
To nobody's surprise, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Star Wars takes the lead with also over 100 games launched and more coming your way. After getting 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, there's even more with Ubisoft's Star Wars Outlaws and Quantic Dream's Star Wars Eclipse. And just in general, the Star Wars games have been astounding and iconic, rivaling the experiences of the movies and shows.
Though there are the old Atari games of The Empire Strikes Back or the '80s and '90s space simulator games, it was really the early 2000s that was the ultimate era of Star Wars gaming. Jedi Academy, Knights of the Old Republic, Battlefront, Republic Commando, and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:many more excellent titles paved the way for Fallen Order and Survivor.