Another video game is set to become a live-action movie. This time it’s The Drifter, a 2D point-and-click adventure video game, with Sony Pictures and Story Kitchen joining forces to oversee the project. Dmitri M. Johnson and Michael Lawrence Goldberg from Story Kitchen will serve as co-producers, best known for their work on Netflix’s animated series Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft, featuring Hayley Atwell’s voice performance as the titular character. Streets of Rage’s Timothy I. Stevenson and Elena Sandoval will be in charge of executive producing the movie.
First released for PC on July 17, 2025, The Drifter then landed on Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 the following year on June 22. It was an independently produced game from Australian developer Powerhoof, which is also responsible for other games such as Crawl, Regular Human Basketball, and The Telwynium: Book One, Two & Three.
Dave Lloyd, a multihyphenate who directed and wrote the game, follows the titular drifter Mick Carter, a cynical protagonist who witnesses a vicious murder. And this is where it gets interesting: The perpetrators turn out to be high-tech soldiers, and Mick ends up being hunted, captured, and left to drown in a reservoir. But he is somehow alive, leading to a desperate fight for survival and uncovering a sinister conspiracy involving shadowy organizations and weird science in the hands of a madman.
The Drifter garnered positive reviews and even made its mark as a multiple Australian Game Developer Awards winner, including Game of the Year, Excellence in Visual Art, Excellence in Narrative, and Excellence in Sound Design. It comes as no surprise that such a game is ripe for a movie adaptation sooner or later, especially given its eclectic mix of pulpy noir, sci-fi thriller, and psychological horror all wrapped in a gritty Ozploitation style and tone.
With Sony Pictures and Story Kitchen securing rights for the movie, Deadline has reported that “top writers and directors are already reaching out to sell their pitch.” Sony is, of course, no stranger to adapting video games to varying degrees of success, including the Milla Jovovich-led Resident Evil film series, totalling six of them between 2002 and 2017.
The studio rebooted the franchise with Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City in 2021 under the direction of 47 Meters Down’s Johannes Roberts. But the $25 million production could only muster a less-than-convincing $42 million at the worldwide box office, ending the prospect of a planned sequel. Sony also made Silent Hill, The Angry Birds Movie, Uncharted, and Gran Turismo, to name a few.
Sony will be releasing the brand-new Resident Evil on September 18, marking the second reboot that’s been brimming with high anticipation since director and co-writer Zach Cregger of Barbarian and Weapons fame spearheaded the project. This year alone, the video game movies have already made their way to the cinemas, from Return to Silent Hill to The Super Mario Galaxy Movie and Mortal Kombat II.
As of now, The Drifter is still in its earliest development stage with no planned release date on the cards.
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Watch the trailer for The Drifter game below.
