Dragon Age writer David Gaider says Dragon Age series is a “terrible idea” and he’s not thrilled about Mass Effect.The recent success of TV series inspired by games – Fallout, Cyberpunk, Halo, Castlevania, The Last of Us – has sparked a lot of talk about what other games might make good TV adaptations.
Former Dragon Age lead writer David Gaider is one of many who has thoughts on the matter, but what’s even more interesting is not the games he thinks would make good television, but the ones he thinks do. they won’t.
I guess everyone expects me to say Dragon Age, but that would be a terrible idea. I want to see David Lynch style Disco Elysium (on acid). Or maybe Banishers.
Dragon Age writer David Gaider says Dragon Age series is a “terrible idea” and he’s not thrilled about Mass Effect.Considering David’s experience in the industry (Dragon Age series and its novels, Baldur’s Gate 2, Neverwinter Nights, KOTOR and Anthem), this seems an odd choice. Surely such a veteran couldn’t adapt the game? To this the scriptwriter responded:
If you take away the interactive element, you’re left with a fairly standard fantasy story. It will take a very deep dive to get to the elements that make games unique and interesting. It’s not impossible, but it will require more than just literal adaptation.
For the same reason, he thinks a series based on Baldur’s Gate would also be a bad idea, saying he has a hard time imagining it as “something we haven’t seen before, more than once.”
This also applies to Mass Effect (and apparently Halo):
Like Dragon Age or BG3, I have a hard time imagining a Mass Effect series doing anything we haven’t already seen dozens of times. For example, a Halo series could just as easily be a Mass Effect series.
It sounds quite rational, because a successful adaptation of a game series requires defining and then distilling what makes it special – otherwise it will turn out to be banal. This doesn’t mean that such a series won’t be successful, it’s just that what makes them unique as games won’t necessarily translate into uniqueness and value on screen. Returning to Dragon Age, Gaider tweeted that he would happily write a TV series based on the games:
… but I can tell you right now that a cliched fantasy story about a group of adventurers in the vein of Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves would not be my first choice. Or second. Or even third.
In case you forgot, Netflix is releasing a Dragon Age series in 2022. Gaider called the animated show Dragon Age: Absolution a passable spin-off that crams characters into too tight a time frame.
On the other hand, Banishers has a focused story, with plenty of individual elements that would shine in the series format, and Disco Elysium features a psychedelic narrative that will play out interestingly even without the interactive elements.
Additionally, Gaider jokingly (perhaps) suggested that Animal Crossing would be a must-see “suspenseful political thriller” series, and he also had an idea for a modern update of Wolfenstein:
Place it in modern times, and all Nazis are Nazis who insist they aren’t real Nazis and accuse the protagonist of “wokeism.” It would be great.
