“The Man in Black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.” This is the very first line from book one (The Gunslinger) of the epic Dark Tower series from Stephen King. This one line leaves you with great anticipation of the adventure you’re about to experience. This one line could easily be a pitch for, let’s say, a video game (or a sh** movie…) based off this series of books.
The Dark Tower is an epic tale, that mixes western, sci-fi, good vs evil, and fantasy in one very special package that is begging to be put in the hands of a good developer. You could take this potential game in so many directions. The two I would recommend is either an open world adventure like Red Dead Redemption or a choose your own adventure like Telltale – by going through the book’s story over multiple seasons, just like they have done with their other series of games.
For an open world game, there is limitless potential in the Dark Tower series, because there are quite a few different worlds, and each one can be radically different or similar to the others. But, if I were in charge of developing the game, I wouldn’t get crazy and go off the rails like the books get later on. I would keep it grounded, and would base it off the first book. The opening line sums up the first book to a tee, and that’s what the game could resemble. Exploring the universe of the Dark Tower series, meeting the iconic characters, doing quests, learning more about the lore, and ultimately chasing down the Man in Black.
The Telltale route would be an interesting endeavour because in those games you make the choices for the character, so you would have to spin-off the source material to make it work. If this were to happen, Telltale studios should have no problem pulling this off. They’ve done it with their other games The Walking Dead, Batman, Game of Thrones, etc. It would be awesome to experience what their version of a Stephen King world would be like.
The Dark Tower series really does have it all, from sorcerers to demons, to talking animals, to gunfights, to deep and intriguing characters, an expansive story and lore with connections to Stephen King’s other works. This series would do wonders in an experienced studio’s hand like Rockstar, Telltale or even better would be CD Projekt Red. If you can adapt the books without completely tarnishing what made the book series special, cough *the movie* cough, then it would be an absolute blast to be able to control Roland the gunslinger and hunt down the Man in Black.
If you guys have no idea what the Dark Tower is, I will include the movie trailer below, but I HIGHLY recommend reading the books, or even the graphic novels instead of watching the movie.
To those fans of The Dark Tower series, what do you think? Is The Dark Tower series primed for a video game adaption? Or should nobody touch it again after the recently released movie? Let me know in the comments below!
Would make a great game, just need a talented developer on the job!