I have no idea sorry, and I still have to play the games too.
I don't know if that would make it into your list but there is Warhammer/Warhammer 40k books too.
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Original Metro 2033 is quite good, but its sequel Metro 2034 was one of the 3 top boring book I have ever had displeasure to read. Perhaps the author wanted to capitalise on his success, but didn't really have an idea about what to do. Maybe that's why he allowed other authors to write their own books in Metro universe, and while I have read just a couple of them, some of them were good. Unfortunately, I got tired of the setting due to the repeating storylines, where only the details ever change years before Metro 2035 being published and can't tell you anything about that one.
Overall, I recommend reading 1st one from the main series, and couple random ones set in the universe.
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2033 is pretty good, sequels were disappointments.
Though the universe is free to expand, so spinoffs were written by other writers - some doesn't exist in English yet, sadly:
Andrey Dyakov's Towards the Light and its sequel, Into the Darkness were awesome. ( Beyond the Horizon seems to be the 3rd in row, I want to get my hands on it :D )
I really liked Tullio Avoledo's The Roots of Heaven and The Children's Crusade
I found Sergei Antonov's Dark Tunnels borderline horrible and boring.
Shimun Vrochek's Piter was awesome, and tbh had a similar premise as Metro 2034 and 2035, but without being overly long and inflated.
At least two? anthologies exist, they were generally good because they paint a picture of everyday life, instead of trying to write an epic. ( I'm super biased towards short story anthologies)
I would take most novels over the original sequels on any day.
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I'll echo the recommendation of the Dragonlance series.
As far as books go, there are many, many series and anthologies with plenty of decent writing, many authored by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.
On the game front, there were to my knowledge 7 games made. The SSI Silver Box Series (Champions of Krynn, Death Knights of Krynn, and Dark Queen of Krynn) have you play as another roving band of adventurers like Tanis, Sturm, etc. whom you even cross paths with. It adapts the ad&d rules for that world with plenty of spells and magical.weaponry, not to forget plenty of dragons, alive and dead. For the time, customizing a party of characters and transferring them from each game with most equipment, stats and spells was novel. I usually rolled 2 Knights of Solamnia, plenty of gear to go around. They're EGA graphics, but still wonderful to play and among my favorite ever (writing this I'm going to have to play them again!)
The 4th, 5th and 6th games were War of the Lance, Dragons of Flame and Shafow Sorcerer, which I only vaguely recall playing the first ( and don't recall beating it). Finally, there was Dragonstrike, also by SSI, which I wanted to play, but never did. It was a flight simulator based on mounted dragon combat.
It's a really fun literary world that is very well developed.
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I forgot about Dragonlance; had a few friends recommend it back when I used to play DND. Might be a good one there. I think last time I was considering the series, I got sidetracked cuz it wasn't immediately obvious where to start and there had been a Sanderson book I hadn't read yet (I can be very ADHD sometimes lol).
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I'm a programmer; so I'm very familiar with technical problems lol. And "bad implementations" can come from so many angles such as bad design, bad QA, bad coding by even just one or two folks on a team, overly tight deadlines, etc.
But there's also the opposite problem of having a solid implementation but very lackluster story material. I would love to learn how to write/tell stories. Like you say, your imagination is your only limit. But there is definitely a skillset involved there as well.
Still in a post-GOT (the tv series) world, I think a lot of TV/movie firms have realized the value in working off solid story material as everybody strives for "the next GOT". Wouldn't surprise me too much to see the game industry move in a similar direction too; Witcher series is already a pretty popular example of doing so and many game studios would like to put out "the next Witcher 3".
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The Dwarves is based on a book series with same name. I played a few hours of the game, it seems good, great voice acting and graphics. It's a little hard in the beginning but probably gets easier as you play it.
Also an obvious choice, the Lord of the Rings games, LEGO LOTR and The hobbit, shadow of mordor and shadow of war. The MMO LOTR game is actually very rich in lore and if you're a big fan of the books it's really worth a try. They went in full detail with that game, you'll explore areas that were never present in the movies and get to meet tons of interesting characters like Tom Bombadil. That game is practically the entire Tolkien lore into a single video game and it still looks beautiful to this day.
Conan Exiles and Age of Conan: Unchained based on Conan books and comics.
Agatha Christie: The ABC Murders
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream
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doh! how did I forget LOTR lol. Been awhile but have definitely read them. I imagine the series would feel a bit dated for younger folks today but then again there's a reason it still gets mentioned.
Wheel of Time! Loved that series (well, maybe the ending was a little lackluster but still enjoyed it). That would make an excellent background for a video game.
Haven't read any of the others, although the Conan stuff is on my backlog somewhere (since some of it was by Robert Jordan/James Oliver Rigney Jr.) and I knew Pillars of the Earth was based on a novel but haven't read it or played the game (though I've liked the Deponia series by Daedalic). Are those pretty good reads?
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I haven't read any except for the Lotr books so I can't comment on their quality. I listed them in case someone is interested in checking them out, I do plan to read most of them one day.
I don't think the Lotr books are that dated, I mean I read them at a young age too 18-19, I wasn't that young true but are the Lotr books really for children in the first place? They're quite dark, The hobbit would be more appropriate for kids. And even teenagers if they're open minded enough they can get into it really easy.
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All I meant by dated is that the pace is slower (like pretty much everything high-fantasy written before the 90s or so) and that you find some things that aren't typically done anymore (I can't recall off the top of my head any other sci-fi/fantasy books which have poetry/songs in them except LOTR/Hobbit and maybe one somewhere in the WOT series). Wasn't meant to suggest it isn't good any more or anything like that; it's classic for a reason!
It's also been a long long time since I last read them too so I could be mis-remembering. Of all the oldies I've read, Earthsea still sticks out in my memory as having some of the most abysmally slow pacing and LOTR doesn't bring that same thoughts forth so it's gotta be better paced than that. Maybe I'm off base.
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Oh yea I can agree it's slower paced and some young folks really don't like that. Oh and Earthsea, I only got to read the first half of the first book, is it really that slow? I'm afraid now. :)
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Been awhile on that one too. I remember the first book maybe 2 being slower paced but not bad. But towards the end of the series, I was either just completely losing interest or the pacing was terrible or both. This was years ago so there's bound to be some margin of error in my remembrance too lol.
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Not 100% on topic, but the devs of Disco Elysium said that their game was based on/in a world they had in mind, and wanted to do a book.
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No games so far, only books, but there is potential for great games: Malazan Book of the Fallen
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Ohh... had forgotten about that one. Grimdarks are a bit hit and miss with me, but I've repeatedly heard good things about the MBotF series. Might have to bump that one up to the top of my backlog lol.
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S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is loosely based on Roadside Picnic (and on the movie Stalker of course). I haven't played/read it but I'm pretty sure the game only uses the atmosphere of the film, and is radically different.
I assume you don't count comics ? Most of the catalogue of Telltale is based on (worthwhile) comics.
Fables is especially fun to read.
Also Rebellion (video game editor, but also responsible for the 2000AD comic periodical) has published a few games based on 2000AD comics, among which Rogue Trooper and Judge Dredd (both are worthwhile comics)
And there is of course Batman, Spider-man, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (which it seems is actually a good comic)
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S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is loosely based on Roadside Picnic (and on the movie Stalker of course). I haven't played/read it but I'm pretty sure the game only uses the atmosphere of the film, and is radically different.
I'm not sure if English translations exist, but there are around 10? STALKER books that mostly were written after, and based on the games. Scavenging, adventuring, dangers and secrets of The Zone in focus.
Roadside Picnic is remarkably similar in its elements and very, very noticable that STALKER games-books are based on it, but it's not as personal or adventure focused, more like something changed and how it affects people there. Still very much worth the read, so many good ideas of artifacts and anomalies were already written there.
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Starcraft
Magic the Gathering
Diablo
It's kinda hit and miss depending on the author. But there's a surprising amount of novels based off of game worlds.
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huh, I hadn't noticed this before. I've had a hard time getting into electronic card games ever since I burned myself out on solitaire in the late 90s haha. Appreciate the mention, but I might have to hold off and hope someone eventually makes an action/rpg version. :-)
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Bioshock.
The book explains how Rapture build, then shit went down. (So it is pre- Bioshock 1)
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Mass Effect
Dragon Age
H.P Lovecraft books (lots of games basead in the Mythos)
Lord of the Rings/Hobbit
Rama (book series from Arthur C. Clarke)
And maybe the How to Train your Dragon books, even if the games are based in the animated version of the franchise, which has a lot of differences with the books.
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I hadn't realized there were Mass Effect books. Those might be fun... I still need to go back and finish playing the games too lol.
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The first one is a prologue for the first game and tells the incident between Anderson and Saren, which is only cited in the game, as the cause of the 'bad blood' between the two.
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I loved the Fighting Fantasy gamebook series when I was younger. The video game versions, most of which are spin-offs, aren't as great as the books though.
Stormlight Archives by Brandon Sanderson would make a great action/rpg
I'd second this even though I haven't read this series (yet) :P The guy's a brilliant author
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I'd second this even though I haven't read this series (yet) :P The guy's a brilliant author
Yeah, I had to restrain myself to only one of his series. But honestly, I think I would also enjoy games based on the Mistborn, Rithmatist, Elantris, or Skyward series too. Only one I couldn't really get into was his YA "Alcatraz" series, probably because it is targeted to a much younger audience.
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The early Halo books are fantastic but once the Covenant war ends I find that they lost sight of where they wanted to take the franchise and the stories become hit or miss.
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Had heard of the book series but always assumed it was just a cash grab. Good to know that at least some of it might be worth reading.
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I'm currently reading and enjoying Dead Space: Martyr, a prequel of sorts to the Dead Space games
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Dead Space had a surprising amount of official cross-platform stuff tied into the franchise. If memory serves, there's even an animated film.
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While these aren't games adapted from books, the newest Mass effect Andromeda book is great and fills in a huge plothole in that story. The first two splinter cell books are excellent as well.
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If you have only played part of the first ME and plan to go back and play through the entire game series, would you recommend doing that first (e.g. does the book series have spoilers for the games or is it separate characters/plot set in the same universe)?
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i would say do not read the book until you finish mass effect andromeda as it has spoilers for that and you would really be missing context on the story. i would finish at least 1 of the original trilogy as well just to get an understanding of the different races as that context is important for the story, buut the splinter cell books could be read without any prep work.
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Discworld and Vampire the Masquerade
sadly the red death trilogy of vampire is kind of hard to get
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Discworld was my first thought as well. It's a shame that it's impossible to obtain these games legally nowadays.
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interesting, I have a friend that plays the discworld mud but never realized that there was a discworld video game as well. Too bad it's not on steam/gog and seems hard to find (but not impossible).
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If you don't mind PDFs, that vampire trilogy is on DriveThruRPG for $11 or so
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starwars old republic, Darth bane trilogy and Darth revan are my favorites
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is it pre- or post- Disney? I have had such a hard time getting into anything Star Wars since Disney killed it for me. Especially hard when visiting with my younger cousins who were raised on the new stuff when I grew up on all the old SW "Expanded Universe" novels/games that Disney said "nope, not canon" and proceeded to throw into a wood chipper... In the Star Wars I knew, Han and Leia had 3 kids not one. And Luke's apprentice was the one who turned to the dark side.
I LOVED the old Thrawn trilogy / Shadow of the Empire (book and game) / Jedi Academy books. Timothy Zahn and Kevin J. Anderson were probably my favorite authors growing up but have a real hard time getting into the "prequel" stuff (those just never captured me like the original trilogy) and especially the post-Disney stuff (feels like I'm walking on the graveyard of the SW universe I knew growing up)
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pre-disney. they have been slowly erasing the old starwars books and it pisses me off.
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Don't know how good the games might be, but Hard Luck Hank and the Grimnoir Chronicles are two of my favorite book series and I'd love to see them come to life in some fashion - as long as it could be faithful to the books. And if you're into audio books, the narrations for each series are among the greatest I've heard - Bronson Pinchot for Grimnoir and Liam Owen for HLH are both perfectly narrated.
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agreed. and seconded on the audiobooks. especially the personality that Owen brings to Hank, I feel like reading the book on paper/kindle that you're actually missing out vs listening to the audiobook (before that book, I used to think written word was always best; that one finally made me realize that audiobooks can sometimes be better in the sense of bringing out a personality). I think R.C. Bray's narration of the Expeditionary Force had a similar feeling for me, especially after Skippy is introduced as a character.
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Oh yeah; it actually worries me a bit that if they do a movie or series they'll never find actors who can more perfectly sound like Hank and Delovoa. And if you like Grimnoir you might also know the Tom Stranger short novels by Larry Correia - Adam Baldwin reads those and might even be more awesome than Owen.
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I've read his Monster Hunter series (on kindle) and had heard of TS series but never read it... but now that you mentioned that about the audiobook, it just jumped way up in my list lol. In fact, I may be burning up my last audible gift card for that next haha. Thanks!
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The Diablo novels are a good dark fantasy series, just stop reading before the Diablo 3 plot... because yeah they aren't as good then.
https://www.goodreads.com/series/54355-diablo
Book of Cain should be the last one you read.
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You always hear about movies/tv/etc being adapted to video games or occasionally vice versa, usually with sub-par results. But what about novel series? Any reads that you'd recommend which were also made into video games? What about stuff that would make a fun game? Be sure to say if you are listing #existing book-to-game series or #proposed ones. ;-)
I'll start it off with these:
Existing
These all have been made into video games.
The Witcher series by Andrzej Sapkowski - I've only played the first 2 and I was one of the few who liked the controls in the first game more than the controls in the 2nd. The books, I will admit were not my favorite, but I know if I didn't mention them then every other comment will be about them. Too much contempt and too slow paced for me. Game takes place in same world, has same characters, but follows its own story
Harry Potter - Read and enjoyed the books. Never played the games, lego or otherwise.
The Riftwar Saga by Raymond E Feist - The game "Betrayal at Krondor" (note that the bundled Antara game is not related to this book series whatsoever) takes place in the same world, has characters from the books, dialog and chapter text feels like it comes from books, game has it's own story that was later made into a secondary novel series. This was one of my favorite games growing up and I loved the books too. Looking back on the books, some of that is definitely nostalgia; the books were decent but definitely not top-notch by today's standards, the series was written in the 80s and especially the first two have the feel of a new author. I still would recommend them, just not as strongly as something like Harry Potter or The Dresden Files.
Proposed
AFAIK, these only exist as books right now, but would probably make fun video games.
EDIT: Btw, in case anyone is interested in avoiding spoilers:
Been awhile since I read the Witcher books... I think the tv show and the books have roughly the same plot from what I could remember. IIRC, the games d their own thing so there's no really any danger of spoilers and either the books or TW1/TW2 games are safe to play first. I haven't gotten to TW3 yet, so I can't confirm but I believe it is also separate plot from the books.
Betrayal at Krondor takes place after the events in the 4 Riftwar Saga but you don't really need to have read the books to enjoy the game. The events in the game take place in a second 4-book series called the Riftwar Legacy which does contain spoilers for the game.
Haven't played the HP games, so I can't comment on those w/r/t spoilers. The movies follow the books pretty closely from what I remember so if you've seen the movies/read the books, I assume you're fine but not sure about spoilers if you start from the game.
As mentioned below, Mass Effect you should start with the games as the books will have spoilers.
Lords of the Rings. I only played one of them (War in the North I think) and it was a completely separate plot from the books/movies. I think some of the lego ones might follow the book/movie plots but am not sure. The MMO should be separate I think. If in doubt, read the books / watch the movies first and you should be good.
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