10 Best TV Shows Based On Video Games, Ranked

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

We don't need to remind you that movies based on video games have been an incredibly mixed bag, requiring a lot of digging to find anything even halfway decent. While "Mortal Kombat" was an early outlier, video game movies were generally cult favorites — or appreciated purely on a so-bad-its-good level — up until fairly recently. 

The primary issue is that most games last for anywhere from eight to 80 hours, if not more. Even on the low end, it's tough to condense one into a sensible and uncluttered two or three-hour movie. This is why it's becoming more common to ponder which classic games could be adapted into a successful TV series than continuing to assume that all video game adaptations will go to the big screen. It's a much better format for the transition, as it allows even the lengthiest games a lot more room for world-building and actually do right by the games' stories and universes. 

There have already been a number of great video game TV shows, encompassing both animation and live action as well as approaches both lighthearted and incredibly serious. These 10 are the best of the best thus far, culled from a combination of critics' reviews, award recognition, ratings numbers, and audience scores to come up with what we feel is a pretty accurate consensus. 

• Cast: Pablo Schreiber, Shabana Azmi, Olive Gray
• Creators: Kyle Killen, Steven Kane, David Wiener
• Number of seasons: 2
• Where to watch: Paramount+

First announced all the way back in May 2013 — following a previous attempt at a "Halo" movie from Neil Blomkamp that ultimately collapsed – the Steven Spielberg-produced live action "Halo" TV series finally hit Paramount+ in March 2022. Like the game franchise upon which it is based, the show follows a supersoldier named Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 (Pablo Schreiber) — typically referred to as simply Master Chief — as he leads humanity's battle against a powerful alien race known as the Covenant.

Season 1 got generally positive reviews from critics but didn't find much love from existing fans of the games, who bemoaned how many liberties the show took with the franchise's lore. Nonetheless, "Halo" got a second season to redeem itself, scoring significantly higher with critics and even managing to bring a lot of the audience around to its side.

Unfortunately, it was too little, too late in terms of ratings, and "Halo" wasn't given another season with which to continue that upward trajectory. Still, we at least got one good season and one great season of a "Halo" TV series, with the latter being one of the best seasons of a video game-turned-TV show that we've seen yet. 

• Voice cast: Roger Craig Smith, Mike Pollock, Colleen O'Shaughnessey
• Creators: Evan Bailey, Donna Friedman Meir, Sandrine Nguyen
• Number of seasons: 2
• Where to watch: Netflix, Pluto TV

There have been a bunch of different animated series based on the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise: at one point, there were even two running concurrently, such was the popularity of the character in the early '90s. Some of the Sonic cartoons are definitely better than others — and some, like the dreadful "Sonic Underground," should be avoided completely. While fans have their favorites — often whichever one they happened to grow up with — we think "Sonic Boom" is the overall best, even if the game of the same name upon which it is based was an absolute trainwreck.

Debuting on Cartoon Network in 2014 and running for two seasons, one of the things that makes "Sonic Boom" such a treat is that it is genuinely funny. Some Sonic cartoons, such as the anime "Sonic X," take the franchise too seriously. On the other hand, "Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog" just went for cheap Saturday morning cartoon-type jokes. But "Sonic Boom" is extremely well-written, featuring shockingly high-quality humor and whip-smart dialogue. 

The show's fantastic, scene-stealing version of Knuckles, which leans heavily into him being a sort of lovable meathead doofus, surely inspired his characterization in the "Sonic the Hedgehog" movies. Unfortunately, the character's solo spin-off show from those films, the simply-named "Knuckles," was rightfully called a shameless Sonic cash-in in our review. 

• Cast: Anthony Mackie, Stephanie Beatriz, Will Arnett (voice only)
• Creators: Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, Michael Jonathan Smith
• Number of seasons: 2
• Where to watch: Peacock

One of PlayStation's very first original franchises, "Twisted Metal" was a mainstay of the console brand for many years. And even though it has seemingly stalled out with the 2012 PlayStation 3 installment (simply titled "Twisted Metal"), we nonetheless got a television adaptation of the series in 2023. Nobody quite knew what to expect from a "Twisted Metal" TV show, but it ended up being a surprisingly fun dark comedy action series that absolutely nails the tone of its namesake game series.

While it initially forgot the one thing that made the games popular — the actual car combat — that misstep was more than rectified with a much more vehicular action-based Season 2. Main leads Anthony Mackie and Stephanie Beatriz definitely understand the assignment, camping it up just enough but also bringing the emotion when the moment calls for it. And Will Arnett being cast as the voice of "Twisted Metal" villain-mascot Sweet Tooth — while being physically portrayed by wrestler Samoa Joe — is a masterstroke. Arnett can obviously bring the funny, but he's also able to turn on a dime and bring out Sweet Tooth's terrifying side as needed. 

As of now, there have only been two seasons of "Twisted Metal." But considering how much better Season 2 was than Season 1 — which was already solid to begin with — there's no reason to be anything but optimistic that the show will finish strong, however long of a road Peacock gives it. 

• Voice cast: Richard Armitage, James Callis, Alejandra Reynoso
• Creator: Warren Ellis
• Number of seasons: 4
• Where to watch: Netflix

"Castlevania," Konami's iconic series of vampire-slaying action-adventure games, is the oldest franchise on this list. Yet it took until 2017, over 30 years after its debut, to get its first dedicated screen adaptation. Not that anyone is sad that we never got the Paul W.S. Anderson movie we were threatened with, but it's still shocking how long it took for "Castlevania" to become a movie or TV show. 

Loosely based around the storyline from "Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse," Netflix's "Castlevania" animated series had a slightly shaky start but absolutely crushed it from Season 2 onward. The series is surprisingly adult, and we're not just talking about the blood and nudity — there is a real maturity here to the proceedings that is often lacking in video game adaptations. 

Many studios still assume that only kids play video games, but that hasn't been the case for a long time. Any video game that isn't ripe for "prestige television" treatment — we'll get to those soon enough — is typically relegated to being shallow kids' stuff. By not following that reasoning, "Castlevania" is not only one of the best video game TV shows, but one of the best TV shows about vampires, period. It's also worth calling out spin-off series "Castlevania: Nocturne," which didn't quite match the original's quality but is still a worthy successor overall. 

• English voice cast: Veronica Taylor, Rachel Lillis, Eric Stuart
• Creators: Takeshi Shudo, Junki Takegami, Atsuhiro Tomioka, et al
• Number of seasons: 28
• Where to watch: Netflix, The Roku Channel

The "Pokémon" anime — branded in the U.S. as "Pokémon the Series" — arrived so quickly after the first Pokémon video games that a lot of people mistakenly believe that the show actually came first. It really is impressive that not only did "Pokémon the Series" launch just a year after the game series started, but it was actually really good.

Unfortunately, quick cash-grab anime based on video games is extremely common, and most are instantly forgettable. Yet "Pokémon the Series" has now been continuously running for nearly 30 years, a franchise unto its own with movies, merch, and more. And it has lasted because it's a genuinely good series, both as a fun supplement to the games and also able to function entirely on its own even for people who never touch the games. 

For our money, the "Pokémon the Series: XY" generation — the 17th-19th seasons — is the best iteration of the anime thus far. And some are definitely better than others, with the "Black and White" seasons often considered the nadir. But taken as a whole, "Pokémon the Series" belongs in the pantheon of both video game TV shows and anime in general.

• English voice cast: Zach Aguilar, Emi Lo, William J. Stephens
• Creators: Rafał Jaki, Mike Pondsmith
• Number of seasons: 1
• Where to watch: Netflix

After a disastrous 2020 launch plagued with bugs, technical issues, and broken promises, "Cyberpunk 2077" became one of video gaming's best comeback stories. The game's developer worked tirelessly to fix the issues and rebuild its goodwill with the community, and the result is a game that is now generally hailed as a modern-day classic. The general consensus is that 2022 was the year the game finally "got good," as it were, which happened to be the same year that the excellent Netflix series "Cyberpunk: Edgerunners" was released.

In fact, the quality of "Edgerunners" was said to be a major contributing factor to getting people excited about the "Cyberpunk" franchise as a whole again. People watched the show, fell in love with it, and then decided to give the game another chance — spurred on by the game having content added to it that tied it to "Edgerunners." So not only is "Edgerunners" good, it is so good that it helped to rescue its video game source material.

"Edgerunners" — which takes place in a dystopian future California, where cybernetically-enhanced humans battle corporate overlords — took home Crunchyroll's award for anime of the year, while also being nominated in basically every category it was eligible for. Its sole season thus far tells a self-contained story with no plans for a follow-up, though there is a sequel series in the works that will follow a different story and cast of characters. 

• Hosted by: Lynne Thigpen, Greg Lee
• Creators: Howard Blumenthal, Dana Calderwood, Dorothy Curley
• Number of seasons: 5
• Where to watch: Not currently available to stream

The Carmen Sandiego computer game series has been making learning legitimately fun for multiple generations of kids, beginning with 1985's "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" Subsequent sequels have tasked players with looking for the titular thief in specific regions of the world, in addition to literally chasing her through both time and space.

The franchise has seen several screen adaptations, including animated series in both 1994 and 2019. But the best adaptation is one of the most underrated game shows ever, PBS's "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?," which ran from 1991 to 1995. Like its video game namesake, the show made it fun for kids to learn about geography, intercutting trivia questions and challenges with fun skits featuring phone calls with Carmen and her various minions. Beloved character actor Lynne Thigpen played the friendly and helpful Chief, while a capella group Rockapella served as the live house band by performing both the iconic theme song and various other catchy musical stings.

It was a fun, fast, and well-made game show, beloved by kids who were the right age for it, and it's a shame that there aren't more like it today. Direct successor "Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego?" was pretty good, but lacked some of the magic of the original and only lasted two seasons.

• Voice cast: Hailee Steinfeld, Ella Purnell, Kevin Alejandro
• Creators: Christian Linke, Alex Yee
• Number of seasons: 2
• Where to watch: Netflix

While there is definitely deep lore connected to the "League of Legends" video game series, the lion's share of its popularity comes from it being an online multiplayer game that is a common fixture at eSports tournaments. So it might not seem like the ideal source material with which to build a character-driven, story-heavy TV show.

And yet, Netflix's "Arcane: League of Legends" ended up being one of the best video game TV series ever released. In fact, IGN proclaimed that the show was "the nail in the coffin of the so-called video game curse." Covering the power struggle between the rich denizens of Piltover and the less fortunate in Zaun, "Arcane" scored an impressive 100% on Rotten Tomatoes for both of its seasons. Even before the next show on our list started racking up Emmy wins, "Arcane" made history as the first video game adaptation to win a Primetime Emmy award. 

As of this writing, "Arcane" has finished its run, while the two shows ahead of it are still going. So who knows — maybe they'll both drop off so hard quality-wise before they wrap up that we'll have to update this list and give "Arcane" the top spot.

• Cast: Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey, Kaitlyn Dever
• Creators: Craig Mazin, Neil Druckman
• Number of seasons: 2
• Where to watch: HBO Max

The video games "The Last of Us" and "The Last of Us Part II" had already delivered Hollywood-quality production values, writing, cinematography, and acting to the medium, so for those games to transition into a prestige television show didn't seem like it was going to be a tricky road. Even so, a lot can go wrong when adapting even the most surefire source material, especially video games, so nothing is ever a foregone conclusion as far as that goes.

However, it was clear from the very first episode of HBO's "The Last of Us" that the show was going to do right by the highly acclaimed game. Putting aside the eye-rolling criticism from the worst, most toxic people on the internet about the casting of Bella Ramsey as Ellie, "The Last of Us" gets just about everything right from the games while also knowing what to adjust to make it flow better as a non-interactive piece of entertainment. A lot of the stress and tension in the games comes as a direct result of the player being in control of the situation — and having the option to fail — but the show has managed to keep those moments feeling much the same even when viewed by a passive audience.

"The Last of Us" has won nine Primetime Emmys across its two currently-released seasons, including a well-deserved win for Nick Offerman for his role in the incredible bottle episode "Long, Long Time" — hailed by many as one of the best television episodes of all time.

• Cast: Ella Purnell, Aaron Moten, Walton Goggins
• Creators: Graham Wagner, Geneva Robertson-Dworet
• Number of seasons: 2
• Where to watch: Prime Video

Two post-apocalyptic TV shows based on acclaimed post-apocalyptic video game franchises vied for the top spot on this list. So far, "The Last of Us" has more Emmys, higher Rotten Tomatoes scores, and the added gravitas of being a prestige show on HBO. So why did we give "Fallout" the top spot? To put it bluntly, it's just a lot more fun.

To be fair, "The Last of Us" isn't trying to be fun. And the best examples of art in any given genre, with the obvious exception of comedy, don't necessarily win by being fun. But video games need to be entertaining to play in order to succeed, so the absolute best representation of that medium in film or on television should be one that brings that same vibe of being entertaining to the proceedings.

"Fallout" very much does that: its overall dire post-apocalyptic world of people clinging to tiny shreds of hope within underground vaults and across an irradiated wasteland full of mutated monstrosities has a constant undercurrent of comedy. Sure, it's very black comedy at times, but you never go more than a scene or two without laughing, or at least smiling. It frequently resorts back to being playful — which is what a video game TV show should be.