Acclaimed game Pacific Drive – about driving through a dangerous exclusion zone – has been picked up by James Wan’s production company.
The critically-acclaimed indie game Pacific Drive looks set to be adapted into a TV series, courtesy of James Wan’s production company, Atomic Monster.
The original game saw the player having to upgrade their car as they attempted to travel through a surreal and dangerous exclusion zone in Washington State.
Given that Wan has one of the most packed slates in Hollywood, it’s unclear at this stage just how involved the director of The Conjuring and Malignant will be (Variety, which published the original report, doesn’t specify) but we can imagine that given Atomic Monster’s involvement, the adaptation will no doubt play into the story’s horror elements.
With a haunting electronic score and some surreal visuals, Pacific Drive is a game that worked very much on an atmospheric level. Creating the same feel in the TV show while presumably having to structure a more developed plot and pace will be the challenge for Atomic Monster. Still, the company clearly feel like the title is rich with storytelling potential and they’re not wrong.
We’ve seen lots of big budget blockbusters from the gaming world get screen adaptations of late, what with The Super Mario Bros Movie being one of the most commercially successful films of last year and Sonic The Hedgehog 3 looking to emulate similar levels of success when it releases this month.
There’s a rich seam of untapped indie games ripe for the screen, however, and it would be wonderful if a few of them – such as Disco Elysium, Dredge, Papers Please or Undertale – also began to see some adaptation love.
We did hear recently that Canadian videogame developer Red Barrels’ horror survival game Outlast has been picked up for a film adaptation by Lionsgate, which previously adapted Borderlands. Perhaps now it’s finished picking through triple-A videogame titles, Hollywood will pay greater attention to some of the storytelling potential that lies in the indie sphere. We’ll bring you more on Pacific Drive as we hear it.
