What Movie IP Would Make A Great MMORPG? No, You Can't Say Avatar

In just a few days now, on April 17th, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will make its way to the PlayStation 5. Having originally launched as a Microsoft exclusive, it wasn't a guarantee that the game would make it to Sony's console, but I'm glad it will. Yes, I know it isn't an MMORPG and it certainly isn't F2P, however, when I played through the entire game back at launch, I couldn't help but think about how the plot made a better movie plot than every actual movie we've received in the franchise since The Last Crusade.

Over the years, we've had many movie and TV shows make their way into the MMO world in some way. The upcoming, and delayed today, Dune: Awakening is bringing Arrakis to us in the form of a survival MMO. Hell, we've had a myriad of attempts at a Game of Thrones MMO now, most resulting in garbage, highly-monetized cash-ins. However, is there a movie I'd personally like to see made into an MMO if money and timing were no object?

Yes, my friend, yes there is. No, I'm not picking Avatar and I'm not picking The Matrix, we already did that one in real life.

I say "movie" and, to date, all the entries in my series have been movies. We'll be getting a TV show version soon courtesy of Hulu, but who knows if that'll be any good. Fingers crossed.

I'd love to see Ridley Scott's Alien franchise developed as an MMO. Yes, I know it suffers lately from the same thing I mentioned above with Indiana Jones. Most of the recent movies haven't been great. However, the world, the "factions," the baddies, it's all just right there for the taking, isn't it?

Any time a popular existing IP is made into a game, and particularly an MMO, there are challenges. When we've seen the IP's world and its inhabitants on screen already, developers tend to stick to the source material very closely or they risk being lambasted by the diehard fans. That's rather limiting sometimes. If you spin up your own new universe, then you've got to not only sell a new game to people, but you have to sell the world to them, too.

Alien wouldn't suffer from that much. It's space. Like, literally...that's it. Make planets and biomes be whatever you want them to be as a developer. Sure, you have a certain look and feel to Weyland-Yutani's ships and buildings, but the planets themselves? Make whatever you want. Not every planet even needs to have colonies or outposts on them.

Races? Sure, humans are probably going to be very prevalent due to the nature of the IP, but there's nothing saying you couldn't put the setting far enough into the franchise's future that we've come across other species now if you want to open up that character creator a bit. With an IP that includes synthetic life-forms, you can really make one look like whatever you wanted to, right? No need to make them look "human" for our comfort anymore.

As for factions, that one is kind of easy, isn't it? No, I'm not thinking that one be the "good guys" and the other be the xenomorphs, although I do have an idea for that a bit later. Instead, one faction can be workers loyal to Weyland-Yutani and the other would be not so loyal. Each faction has their own overall objective. One wants to collect aliens for use as weapons, the other wants to eradicate them. Classes can be the same across both factions, too. You don't NEED to be a "loyal" employee to be a colonial marine from Aliens, you could be a defected marine who has seen what these creatures can do and would like to see them destroyed.

PvE dungeons and raids? Damn, pretty much writes itself doesn't it? Are you telling me you wouldn't love to have a huge raid encounter with a queen? Come on, who wouldn't!?

It would be a wonderfully dark and grim universe to belong to and the gameplay could be along the lines of a Defiance (just better). You don't have to rely on magic and spells, it's your trusty gun and other cool tech that exists in the future. Cryo-grenades, shock weapons, tech traps, healing drones, all of it.

When it comes to gameplay, I wouldn't want this to be a full-blown shooter MMO kind of like we've seen with The Division 2 or Destiny. I do imagine it being more along the lines of the previously called out Defiance. Again though, and I can't stress this enough, it would be done in a much better manner.

On the PvP side, ok, fine, you can play as a xenomorph. We'll do it like The Lord of the Rings Online's Monster Play. There, you get to be an alien now. While we're talking competitively, though, we could implement a system similar to Star Wars: The Old Republic when it comes to narratives. Remember how in flashpoints you would pick dialog options and the dungeon's story played out based on who rolled highest for their option? You could do that here, too. That dungeon may be aimed at taking out a nest somewhere and murdering the alien in it, but maybe pro-Weyland players would want to "subdue" it instead.

Tracking narrative completion counts server-wide could lead to specific events becoming unlocked, too. Maybe too many Weyland players have succeeded in subduing a lot in dungeons and a Weyland transport ship full of eggs is now on its way back to earth. Insert some drama, baby!

The more I think about it, the more I think it fits really well. Sadly, this isn't likely something that would ever happen and, because I do it for everything else in the franchise, I'll blame Prometheus.

What movie IP would you make and how would it work?