Video game adaptations aren’t easy to nail and shows like Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and Arcane stand atop them for a very special reason. Adapting games, no matter the medium becomes very difficult because of how vast yet constrained the source worlds can be. They have set lores and stories, those which cannot easily be replicated into animated or live-action forms. However, a proper understanding of the material can change a lot of that.
The first season of The Witcher, The Last of Us, and Silent Hill are all astounding live-action adaptations. However, when it comes to animation, Arcane, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, and Castlevania all have their own names set in stone. For Hiroyuki Imaishi, there was a very specific reason why the show worked.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Had an Open Array of Ideas
Games are usually made with a lot of care and love put into them. Some of those that are story-based get even more focus because of how important each and every scene can be for the final outcome of the story. Games like Life is Strange and Until Dawn relies on the choices a player makes to determine the course of the story. Adapting such projects into a motion medium becomes increasingly difficult because of how easily there is a possibility to divert from the original story.
The adaptation of Cyberpunk 2077 was made possible by the fact that it was an open-world game. If the base game is different, I think it would be difficult to repeat or copy what we did with Edgerunners.
Hiroyuki Imaishi talked about the very same during an interview on Reddit. There he admitted that making a videogame adaptation is no simple feat and the very reason they were able to achieve it was because of it being an open-world game. Open-world games allow an entire vast array of possibilities. Adaptations become much easier.
The many stories that are available in a world so open to possibilities allow the creators not just to bring the game fans love to play into a movie or series format but also to change the story here and there without criticism.
The Advantages of an Open World Game
Adapting works that come from video games is a challenge on its own. Steering even a little away from the original story is a gamble that studios take in hopes that they get praised and not trolled for it. Animated adaptations in particular have the advantage of fluidity, one that live-action adaptations might find difficult. Were the world of Cyberpunk 2077 any less open, the adaptation would have been just as limited.
An open-world setting provides limitless possibilities. Hiroyuki Imaishi even admitted that if Netflix were to try and replicate the formula that worked on Castlevania and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, then the possibility of it being a success would be very low because the advantage they had was that they were both open-world games.
The freedom to explore stories without the fear of botching what has already been established is a very important thing. Diverting from original stories can become more and more troublesome with the fans disliking the lack of respect for the original sources. However, when the choice becomes so vast, so do the opportunities.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is available to watch on Netflix.
