Books have long been adapted into other forms of media. In the past few months alone, Stephen King’s Carrie premiered as a seven-episode TV show adapted by Mike Flanagan, and Colleen Hoover’s book-to-movie adaptation of Verity hit theaters. But when it comes to gaming, there are surprisingly few book-to-video-game adaptations. It’s a territory rarely explored by developers or authors, which is a shame, because exploring the worlds your favorite books create has its own charm.
Below is a list of some of the best video games out there that were inspired by literature. There’s no need to read the source material before playing these games, but it would definitely elevate your gaming experience.
1
BioShock (2007)
Despite being nearly two decades old, BioShock is still praised for its atmospheric storytelling. In this first-person shooter, you assume the role of Jack, who survives a plane crash in the Atlantic Ocean and discovers the ruins of an underwater dystopian city called Rapture. BioShock writer and lead director Ken Levine has spoken extensively about the influences behind the game — Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, two philosophical novels by author Ayn Rand. Even the primary resistance leader in BioShock is named Atlas — a homage to Rand’s work.
“Atlas Shrugged is much less of a great story. At one point, it has this like 40-page speech in it,” Levine explained in a 2022 interview with DualShockers. “But The Fountainhead was more of a potboiler than a political book. It’s the story of this guy and you have this ‘big enemy’, this critic, all these conflicts, there’s this sexy romance story. It’s kind of silly in a lot of ways, but I think the reason it’s so popular is that, like BioShock, it works in this purely potboiler way.”
There are three main games in the BioShock series, and a complete BioShock Collection is available for purchase on multiple platforms. If you favor some light reading material after your playthrough, you can read BioShock: Rapture, the official tie-in prequel novel written by John Shirley.
2
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015)
The Witcher games as a whole are based on fantasy novels of the same name by author Andrzej Sapkowski, but The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, which first came out in 2015 and was remastered in fall 2026, is a masterclass in book-to-video-game adaptation. The Witcher 3 perfectly embodies the fantasy world first created by Sapkowski and draws players in with engaging quests and a real-time battle system, while dropping Easter eggs for fans of the book series to find along the way.
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