The Hunger Games Video Games Are Catching Fire
Since its inception all the way back in 2008, The Hunger Games franchise has gripped its audience with a compelling narrative, epic action sequences, and heart-wrenching, emotional scenes.
The birth of this brutal spectacle sparked a series of inspired video games, taking advantage of the dystopian concepts from the franchise to create Hunger Games-inspired video games that captured the adrenaline-pumping tension of the original books and films.
Ahead of the highly anticipated prequel, we'll delve into the exhilarating world of The Hunger Games. We'll explore the twisted fantasies and immersive storytelling that provided the foundations for the Hunger Games video games that now dominate the gaming industry.
The Hunger Games Video Game
With such a successful movie franchise, you would have expected the series to expand into the gaming industry and make the most of the dystopian killing-fest's potential a Hunger Games video game is sure to give us.
There has been one Hunger Games video game officially tied to the franchise, but it left a lot to be desired considering the incredible possibilities. The Hunger Games: Girl on Fire was released along with the first film. The game was a mobile, IOS-only game that followed Katniss on a basic, pixelated escape from the feared tracker-jacker bees.
The game provided a quick burst of fun for mobile game players, but it felt like the franchise missed a trick in not seizing the gaming opportunity that they created - one that other developers pounced upon.
Other Hunger Games Video Games
The series has had a really wide-reaching effect on the gaming industry, and there are plenty of popular games that could be said to draw considerable inspiration from Suzanne Collins’ series.
Minecraft
The first of these Hunger Games video games is one of the most beloved games of all time: Minecraft.
Though the game has a multitude of playable formats and offline games, one of the most popular online games is Hunger Games. The servers see between 12 and 100 players launched into a map, locked to a single-block podium to await the start of the game.
A bunch of chests bearing weapons, food, and other useful inventory-fillers tease players in the middle of the podium circle and also can be found scattered across the map. As the countdown ends, players rush to fill their inventories for the inevitable showdown that will leave just one player standing: the Hunger Games video games champion.
It’s an epic mini-game that can really get you sweating, and the game makes no attempt to hide where the concept for the dynamic came from.
Fortnite
Everyone has heard of Fortnite, one of the biggest games of the last decade. This Hunger Games-inspired video game is one that took the world by storm after its launch in 2017.
Fortnite - the free-to-play battle royale game - is available on most consoles and is estimated to be played by over three million gamers worldwide. The game continues to receive new collaborations and updates to this day and shows no signs of slowing down.
Rather than a tantalizing countdown standing on a podium, an airbus flies across the map, dropping players off for them to find their own landing. From there, players must hunt each other down as a fatal storm encloses the map, eventually shrinking the playable area to the size of a pinhead where the remaining survivors must battle it out in an epic clash of skill.
The dynamic strays a lot farther from that in The Hunger Games, but the original series definitely inspired the creation of the hit game.
COD: Warzone
COD: Warzone is perhaps the most popular of these Hunger Games inspired video games amongst the competitive gaming crowd. Merging the realism and violence you'd expect of COD, along with the novelty and fun of Hunger Games video games, Warzone has emerged as one of the most successful, free-to-play games in recent years.
Players must arm themselves with weapons and medical equipment before engaging in battle with other participants, much like in the original series. Though, while Katniss was armed with a bow and arrow, Warzone players can strap up with the likes of a TAQ-56 assault rifle – even Katniss or Finnick wouldn't stand much of a chance up against one of these.
What we Know about The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
The fifth film in The Hunger Games series serves as a prequel to Mockingjay - Part 2, the fourth film based on Suzanne Collins' 2010 novel. Set 60 years before the first film, the upcoming title will follow an 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow before he becomes the tyrannical leader of Panem that we are introduced to in the original series.
For the 10th annual reaping, Coriolanus is paired with Lucy Baird, the tribute from District 12, as her mentor. The film follows the relationship the two build throughout the lead-up, duration, and aftermath of the games, and reveals who is a songbird, and who is a snake.
Judging by the villainous version of Snow we see in the later films - we might already have some presumptions about just who turns out to be a snake…
The trailer teases the opening of the game– the heart-in-mouth moments that are felt as the time ticks down toward the start of the reaping, where tributes charge toward their loot and inevitable demise. It's this captivating, terrifying experience that has inspired a fleet of Hunger Games video games.
Looking Ahead
So, as we are forced to wait until the release of The Hunger Games prequel, there is no shortage of Hunger Games video games that fans can delve into and whet their appetite before its release.
Though no official Hunger Games video games are tied to the series, the plethora of industry-leading games that the series has inspired leaves little to be desired in survival-game entertainment. For now, you'll have to settle for immersing yourself in the gameplay of it all.
May the odds be forever in your favor!
