With the world on lockdown, with increasingly stringent restrictions in place on our daily lives, video games may seem to be a strange answer to the world’s problems, but there’s no doubt that they will play a role. But at the risk of sounding like an old man, there’s only so long in a day that I spend staring at a screen, at the risk of developing square eyes, as my mother used to say. Now, I am, and have always been as long as I can remember, a very keen reader. If only there was a way to combine my love of reading with my love of video games, and somehow shoehorn my love of writing into an article. What’s that? There are novels based on popular gaming franchises? Hold my coat, I’m going in!
A little disclaimer before I do go in however: this article is based on the gaming books that are on my bookshelves, and is in no way a complete list. There are many, many, many more books out there that I haven’t read, I’m sure, so please don’t take this as an exhaustive list of gaming books. With that out of the way, in we go as we take a look at some of the best novels based on games.
1. Gears of War
Gears of War is, on the face of it, a perfect gaming franchise for having its universe expanded.
In the first game, we have to rescue Marcus from the notorious Slab prison, and re-enlist him into the COG. Why was he there? What happened to him while he was in there? How did he get that massive scar down his face? What about what happened to Marcus and Dom before the Locust emerged, way back into the days of the Pendulum Wars?
Well, all these questions and more are answered in a series of books by an author called Karen Traviss. She was given access to the whole operation back when Cliffy B was in charge at Epic Games, with the stories of the games being laid bare to her, letting her take the narrative ball and run with it. From operations in the Pendulum Wars, when Dom was a commando and involved in some very dangerous missions, to his relationship with Victor Hoffman, to how Hoffman gained his reputation for winning at all costs, to how Marcus fared in prison… all this is explained in loving detail in her five books.
She really got under the skin of Marcus in particular, giving life to what, let’s be honest, was a fairly one dimensional character, at least in the first game. As the series went on, we see more of the human side of Delta Squad, except for Baird, obviously. Who can forget Dom finding his wife, or Dom’s heroic sacrifice in the third game, as an example. What the novels did is take the story of the games, expand it and flesh it out – in the process creating some very memorable moments. It’s never going to be studied in university the way Shakespeare and Dickens is, of course, but not everything needs be high brow to be fun.
With the new generation of Gears heroes, JD, Kait et al, a new author has stepped up to bear the mantle of writing stories from the Gears Universe. Jason M Hough has one book under his belt already – Gears of War: Ascendance , and his new novel, Gears of War: Bloodlines is currently in my hot little hands as we speak – keep your eyes peeled for a review soon.
With the new broom, so to speak, the focus has shifted away from Marcus’s generation to his son and his friends, and their histories. With troubled pasts, particularly with JD opening fire on unarmed civilians in the not so distant past, these threads are woven together very skillfully in the novels so far, and I am looking forward to seeing what happens in the future under his stewardship.
With there also being a series of graphic novels based in the Pendulum Wars to read, coming from DC, there is no shortage of material to read and expand your knowledge about the Gears universe. And if you are anything like me, these novels will help to fill in holes in the story, and when you do replay the games, as I do fairly regularly, the way that the books help to flesh out the story is very welcome indeed.
