Video game adaptations are now part of Netflix’s regular portfolio. Most recently, Arcane proved how successful a proper, creative adaptation of a popular video game can be. Now the American streaming giant has secured the rights to produce a Bioshock film! A big task, but there is still too little information for a final judgement. Fans are showing cautious curiosity for now. The Twitter announcement already reveals a possible plot.
What story could the Bioshock movie give us?
The sci-fi shooter series has three games in total, with another in development, and is set in different “punk worlds”. The first two games are set in a 1920s film-noir inspired dieselpunk world and underwater city of Rapture. In the third sequel, released in 2013, we are in a steampunk sky city called Columbia. Apart from the name, all the games are loosely connected by an oversized, parallel-universe time-travel plot, which even after playing several times would be too complicated to write down here in all its breadth in an understandable way.
However, there is a lot of potential here for several exciting films! According to the announcement picture on Twitter, Netflix’s Bioshock film will be based on the first video game part. It also fits the quoted phrase from Rapture founder Andrew Ryan, “Would You Kindly”, which has become iconic in the gaming world.
“We all make choices, but in the end our choices make us.”
Netflix + BioShock. Would you kindly stay tuned? pic.twitter.com/Ke1oJQileX
– Netflix Geeked (@NetflixGeeked) February 15, 2022
Besides the fact that work on the film adaptation has already begun, there is no further info yet. So a release is not to be expected very soon. But that leaves all the more time for anticipation and for interpreting the first future info bites, pictures and trailers. It is also not yet known whether the film adaptation of the Bioshock franchise developed with publisher Take-Two Interactive will be a live-action or animated film. Either would do very well. We’re hoping a bit for the latter, since Netflix, with its animated adaptations of popular video games, has shown a better hand than the big Hollywood studios with live-action films of popular video game series. See Resident Evil, this week’s Uncharted, Doom or Tomb Raider.
However, Paramount’s HALO series, which will be released this year, could be a success. You can already marvel at a German HALO fan film on YouTube and see what is possible with limited financial resources, but all the more passion, talent and attention to detail.
