10 Books That Became Video Games

Many video games are based on original concepts, like a plumber jumping around on massive turtles and walking mushrooms, while a fair number of games are inspired by preexisting ideas.

Many games, especially these days, are inspired by films and television shows such as Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora or the vast number of Star Wars titles, but there are still several games that are based directly on books.

In some cases, authors or their families work directly with developers and publishers to recreate iconic sequences from novels in video game form, while oftentimes, developers themselves are fans of books who strive to recreate or expand upon the books' events.

Games based directly on books may be relatively few in numbers compared to their movie and show counterparts, but they still offer unique and fun experiences for those who were already fans of books and may inspire others to look into the original source material.

10 I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream

Harlan Ellison's Dystopian Nightmare

One of the games that actually had its original book author heavily involved in its development was Harlan Ellison's I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream, a 1995 point-and-click horror game based on Ellison's 1967 short story of the same name.

I Have No Mouth is set in an alternate future where the Cold War regressed into an official World War III, causing Allied Mastercomputers to become sentient and rebel against their human creators, wiping out most of humanity save for five people who AM perpetually tortures.

The 1995 game follows the core premise of the book, but Ellison, Cyberdreams, and The Dreamers Guild collaborated to expand upon the background of each surviving human and allow for multiple ways players can progress and end the game.

While the original 1995 iteration of I Have No Mouth may be cumbersome to play for some modern players, Nightdive Studios recently remastered the game for modern platforms in 2025 with controller support, modernized menus, and extras, keeping its horrifying story intact but improving gameplay a bit.

9 The Hobbit

An Underrated Tolkien Adaptation

The early 21st century was a golden age for adaptations of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings book series, and while most of these adaptations were based primarily on the admittedly amazing Peter Jackson films, a few notable games were based directly on the books themselves, such as 2003's The Hobbit.

Developed in close collaboration with Middle-earth Enterprises and Tolkien scholars, 2003's The Hobbit is a third-person adventure game with platforming and puzzle mechanics based on Tolkien's 1937 novel of the same name.

Unlike Jackson's later The Hobbit trilogy of films released in the 2010s, which often strayed from or changed aspects of the book's original plot, the developers of the 2003 game were under strict orders not to deviate from the book's narrative, save for a few sections that extended combat sections.

This resulted in a rather charming and fun adventure of Bilbo Baggins' journey to help the Dwarves retake their ancestral home in the Lonely Mountain from the avaricious dragon Smaug, one that is oftentimes better than Jackson's films.

8 Alice: Madness Returns

American McGee's Masterpiece

Lewis Carroll's late 19th-century novels Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass are some of the most iconic children's books due to how bizarre and intriguing Wonderland's inhabitants are.

While the Disney films are arguably the most famous adaptations of Carroll's stories, American McGee's Alice and its 2011 sequel, Alice: Madness Returns, are the most interesting works based on Wonderland.

American McGee's Alice is set after Alice's initial visits to Wonderland following a house fire that killed her family, causing her to be implemented into an asylum and turning Wonderland and its inhabitants into more horrific disfigurations to reflect her scarred psyche, such as Mad Hatter becoming a torturous cyborg.

Alice: Madness Returns continues this story, with Alice striving to heal Wonderland and discover the source of her family's death, but both games work well together as one whole story centered around trauma and how people attempt to deal with their past.

7 Parasite Eve

Square Enix's Forgotten Franchise

Similar to how American McGee's Alice and Alice: Madness Returns were sequels to their book inspiration, 1998's Parasite Eve was developed as a sequel to Hideaki Sena's 1995 horror sci-fi novel of the same name.

A third-person shooter and RPG similar to Final Fantasy and Resident Evil, Parasite Eve follows an original character, Aya Brea, as she struggles to stop a woman named Eve from manipulating people's mitochondria to spontaneously combust them or turn them into monstrous creatures in New York City.

As a PlayStation 1 game, Parasite Eve's graphics haven't held up too well over the years, but its gameplay and story have held up remarkably well to become one of the console's many underrated hits.

While Parasite Eve did get a 1999 sequel and a 2010 spinoff, the series has largely been forgotten by Square Enix, but it remains one of the best game adaptations of a book that deserves to find new life in a sequel or a remake soon.

6 Black Myth: Wukong

Sun Wukong's Epic Adventure

The 16th century novel Journey to the West is not just one of the most popular Chinese books ever made, but it's one of the most important books ever made due to how it popularized Chinese history, mythology, and religion across the globe.

As a 500-year-old story, Journey to the West has been adapted into numerous films, shows, games, and more, but one of the best games inspired by the book in recent years has got to be Game Science's Black Myth: Wukong.

Black Myth is essentially a sequel to Journey set centuries after the Monkey King, Sun Wukong, is defeated by the god Erlang Shen, and follows a monkey called the Destined One determined to recover Wukong's relics.

In terms of gameplay, Black Myth is a ton of fun with smooth, versatile combat and epic boss fights that Soulslike games are known for, and the visuals of the game are just incredible, with many locations being nearly exact recreations of real-world Chinese temples and shrines.

5 Lies of P

Pinocchio With a Steampunk Twist

Of all the classic fantasy books written, Carlo Collodi's 1883 children's novel The Adventures of Pinocchio is one at first glance that may be difficult to adapt into an engaging video game, but Neowiz managed to do it with Lies of P.

A third-person action RPG similar to Dark Souls and Bloodborne, Lies of P is set in an alternate steampunk world where mechanical puppets infiltrate nearly every aspect of everyday life until one day the puppets begin murdering humans in the city of Krat.

Meanwhile, residents of the city struggle to survive amid a sweeping infection that either kills or turns people into grotesque mutants, with only the mysterious human-like puppet P able to save the city.

Lies of P may be very different from its source material, but it portrays Pinocchio in an interesting new light, exploring themes of what it means to be human and the dangers of technological advancement.

4 The Wolf Among Us

A City of Fantasy Tales

Telltale's The Wolf Among Us may not exactly be based on a single book, with the game being directly based on Bill Willingham's DC Comics series Fables, but Fables itself is based on several classic fantasy tales now available in the public domain.

For example, The Wolf Among Us' main character, Bigby Wolf, is based on the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs, while Snow White is from the 1812 fairy tale of the same name, and Ichabod Crane is from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

Much like Telltale's The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us is a third-person game centered around split-second action and dialogue decisions that can impact events, relationships, and the ending of the game.

What makes The Wolf Among Us special is just how Telltale is able to adapt all of these fairy tale characters into an urban noir setting that serves as an enthralling prequel to Willingham's celebrated comic series.

3 Dante's Inferno

Visceral Games' Underrated Classic

Dante Alighieri's 14th century poem The Divine Comedy is one of the most prominent pieces of western literature, with the poem being the subject of many biblical studies and the inspiration for many stories set in and surrounding the afterlife, notably Hell.

While The Divine Comedy has been utilized in many films, shows, and other books, it hasn't been directly adapted into many video games, but Visceral Games strove to do just that, albeit in a more action and horror-focused portrayal with 2010's Dante's Inferno.

Based primarily on the first part of The Divine Comedy, Dante's Inferno is a third-person, hack-and-slash game similar to the original God of War titles that follows the Knight Templar Dante from the Third Crusade as he journeys to Hell to save the soul of his beloved Beatrice.

The world design of Dante's Inferno's depiction of Hell is truly unique and horrifyingly engrossing, with most bosses being perfect, disgusting representations of the nine circles of Hell and their associated sins, making Dante's journey all the more haunting.

2 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Geralt's Greatest Quest

Possibly the most famous video game series to be directly inspired by books has got to be CD Projekt Red's The Witcher games, with the best of the three titles so far being The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

Set long after the end of Andrzej Sapkowski's original nine-book-long The Witcher series, Wild Hunt primarily follows Geralt of Rivia as he strives to reunite with his beloved Yennefer and his adopted daughter Ciri to stop the titular Wild Hunt.

A third-person, open-world game, The Wild Hunt is widely regarded to be one of the best open-world games of all time, not necessarily due to its main questline, but rather due to its wide variety of engaging and unique side quests.

Most players can spend dozens of hours, if not days, completing several side quests that delve into the culture, mysteries, and history of The Witcher's continent and its medieval and monstrous inhabitants.

1 Metro 2033

The Post-Apocalyptic Moscow Metro

One of the best book-to-game adaptations to have ever been conceived has got to be 4A Games' Metro 2033, a direct adaptation of Dmitry Glukhovsky's 2002 Russian novel of the same name.

Set in an alternate future where, in 2013, the world was devastated by nuclear war, with many Russian citizens surviving and forming their own nation-states within the vast tunnels of the Moscow Metro transit system.

A first-person shooter, Metro 2033 follows a young man named Artyom who travels through the metro, encountering the rival Stalinists and Neo-Nazis inhabiting the tunnels, while at times going to the surface and avoiding mutated animals and mysterious human-like beings known as the Dark Ones.

While the gameplay of Metro 2033 may be a bit by the numbers, the world and story of 2033 are what make both the book and game great, with Artyom struggling to find a purpose in life in a place filled with fear and xenophobia.