If you are both a cinephile and a hardcore gamer, you constantly see connections between film and video games, whether they are intentional or not. A lot of creators are open about cinema’s influence on their work. What’s more surprising is when older films had such an impact on the medium in surprising, unexpected ways.
Not all of the movies below came out before gaming went mainstream, but they are all old enough to have families and sparked an idea in various game designers' minds that would have an impact on gaming for decades. Sometimes, the influence is apparent on the surface, while other times it is hidden a little deeper.
7El Topo
Influenced Boss Fights In Metal Gear Solid
The first half of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo sees a gunslinger looking to defeat the top three duelists in the world. As he bests each one, they pass a bit of knowledge to the protagonist.In an interview with director Jordan Vogt-Roberts, Hideo Kojima said this type of narrative heavily influenced the boss fights in theMetal Gear Solidseries.
Most bosses, especially in 1998’s Metal Gear Solid,use their dying breaths to have a long conversation with Snake and, by extension, you. El Topo is a highly unconventional film, so it makes sense for it to have such an effect on a medium that tells a story in a radically different way.
More famously, Solid Snake is directly inspired by Snake Plissken from John Carpenter’s Escape From New York.
Resident Evil And The Survival Horror Genre
Night of the Living Dead changed culture as we know it. Zombies are an ever-present force in art and George Romero’s debut film was the first modern incarnation of the reanimated dead. The concept of zombies wasn’t the only thing that entered video games.
The idea of being stuck in one location and having to make do with what’s inside against insurmountable odds iswhat survival horror is all about. Night of the Living Dead mostly takes place in a small house, and the firstResident Evilscales that up to a mansion.
5Alien And Aliens
Doom
John Carmack has gone on record saying that Aliens was a huge influence on the style and design ofDoom. It is easy to see how.
The game puts you on a base on Mars and surrounds you with monsters. It’s not too different than the Colonial Marines stuck on LV-426 while Xenomorphs run around. The main difference is that Doom has no focus on story and you fight multiple monsters in the game as opposed to just the titular beasts in the movie.
The name Doom comes from Martin Scorsese’s The Color of Money. When asked what the main character, played by Tom Cruise, has in his pool cue case, he responds simply with ‘Doom’.
4Raiders Of The Lost Ark
Uncharted And Crash Bandicoot
Indiana Jones is the adventure movie to which all other entries in the genre are compared. The structure of these movies makes perfect sense for a video game, so it is little wonder that they influenced two of Naughty Dogs' most legendary series.
Crash Bandicoot’s boulder levels are a nod to the intro sequence from Raiders of the Lost Ark where Dr. Jones is chased by a boulder in the same way. Uncharted’s ancient mysteries and archeological adventures mixed with fast-paced action make each game feel just like an Indiana Jones movie.
3Enter The Dragon
Mortal Kombat
Bruce Lee’s legendary martial arts film sees him going to an island to enter a secret tournament. If that doesn’t sound familiar, then you’ve likely never playedMortal Kombat. It’s the same plot, only Mortal Kombat adds supernatural elements and elevates the stakes to include the whole world.
To say Mortal Kombat is the only game structured like this wouldn’t be fair, sincea lot of fighting games base themselves around tournamentsas a plot device to gather all these different fighters.
2Hard Boiled And Other John Woo Action Movies
Max Payne And Third-Person Shooters
John Woo’s action movies like The Killer and Hard Boiled are still awe-inspiring today. The gunfights are simply astounding thanks to the stuntmen, the level of destruction in the environment, and the absurdity of one or two people going up against an army of goons.
The fast-paced action scenes influencedMax Payne, which in turn influenced the third-person shooter genre at the start of the millennium. In addition to John Woo, Max Payne takes influence from several other sources, particularly film noir.
It’s also no secret that other Remedy games, particularly Alan Wake, are influenced by numerous movies. The writer’s journey feels particularly close to the work of David Lynch.
1Shape Of Things To Come
Cold Winter
Unlike other movies on this list, Things To Come is directly connected to Cold Winter’s plot. The antagonist is deeply affected by seeing the movie as a teenager and it inspires his whole plan to end the practice of stockpiling nuclear weapons by almost destroying mankind with them.
Released in 1936, the movie about mankind rebuilding itself after nearing extinction from a world war still holds up today for its commentary on war and the open-ended question of whether there is a difference between sacrificing yourself for nothing or for a greater cause. Cold Winter mirrors this message in how the antagonist tries to re-create the movie’s plot in the real world before realizing he can’t play god and needs to let humanity go on its own path.
