It’s no secret that nostalgia for the early 2000s is a huge driver of pop culture today, in movies, TV, and even gaming. We’re getting remakes and remasters left and right, with older games and IPs coming back into the spotlight. But not every trend from the 2000s is making a comeback. Growing up in the 2000s, many big movies and TV series got tie-in video games by default. It was essentially baked into the marketing process. These days, media tie-in games are much less common, and I kind of miss them.
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Of course, there still are big games based on popular IP. Netflix has churned out mobile games for many of its big properties like Squid Game and Stranger Things, and there’s always going to be your Hogwarts Legacy and your Marvel games. But back in the 2000s, even unlikely candidates often got console spinoff games to go with them. Yes, some of these adaptations were among the worst games out there (looking at you, Catwoman). But some of them were actually really solid, and I kind of miss the days of bizarre media tie-in games that didn’t make sense.
Best Media Tie-In Games of the 2000s
Growing up, I spent a lot of time browsing the shelves at GameStop and Blockbuster to find new games to try. And some of the ones I remember most fondly were, in fact, media tie-in games. Though not every property lends itself to a video game format, it was fun to see game developers try to make it work regardless. And some of the best games of the 2000s were, in fact, media tie-in games.
One of the Game Boy games I personally remember most fondly is Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. This adaptation of the second book stuck more closely to the written text than the movies, and it was all the better for it. It featured fun mini-games, surprisingly tricky turn-based combat, and a sense of exploration even in the days before every game was fully open-world. And this wasn’t the only big fantasy series to deliver solid video games in the 2000s, either.
We also got the Lord of the Rings movie tie-in games, which started with the 2002 release of Fellowship of the Ring. These movie spin-off games were incredibly solid RPGs that retold the stories while letting us step inside them. To this day, Return of the King is remembered as one of the best Lord of the Rings games out there, and it exists in part because basically everything got a video game adaptation back in those days.
While these were standout entries, the 2000s were truly a golden age for movie tie-in games. Most big films ended up with a video game adaptation, from Disney games like Ratatouille to Tim Burton classics like Coraline: The Game. The relatively underwhelming X-Men Origins: Wolverine even spawned a surprisingly great game. But that trend slowly fell away, and major movies no longer release alongside new games. Instead, it often takes a while for proven IP to wind up with a video game adaptation, if they get one at all.
Why We Don’t See Many New Movie & TV Video Game Tie-Ins with Modern Gaming
As I was once again thinking back on playing these kinds of games as a kid, I started wondering… why don’t we see these media tie-in games as often anymore? Of course, there’s the simple answer that many of them didn’t actually sell very well. Though the 2000s delivered some of the best media tie-in titles, it also gave us some of the worst. Games like 2004’s Catwoman and 2000’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory live on in infamy. With a glut of media tie-in games, they simply couldn’t all be good or sell well. But that’s not the only reason they’ve fallen off.
Budget and profit definitely are big reasons why these games aren’t as common anymore. But timing is another major reason movies no longer launch alongside tie-in games. As technology has advanced, video games take longer and longer to develop. Meanwhile, movie timelines have stayed relatively constant. Even in the 2000s, the time crunch to launch a game alongside a big movie was part of why so many of the games weren’t very good. But as gaming has become more demanding, it simply stopped being reasonable to expect a movie and game to release on the same timeline.
There’s also the fact that some modern gaming trends don’t necessarily fit in with the idea of a game that retells the story of a movie or TV show. These days, many games feature multiplayer and online components, along with live-service updates. A game like Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets doesn’t really fit that mold. So, many games based on popular IP tend to take a different approach than the direct tie-ins of the 2000s. For instance, Hogwarts Legacy delivers an open-world experience that pulls from Harry Potter lore, but doesn’t directly retell any of the original stories.
Ultimately, many of the movie tie-in games were disappointing. But some of them were great, and I do kind of miss getting to see what developers did with turning things like Ratatouille into a video game. It’s probably a good thing the market isn’t saturated with thin cash-grab media tie-ins anymore, but sometimes I do find myself wondering… what if.
What is your favorite movie or TV tie-in video game? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
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Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.
