YouTuber TeaserPlay has released a video ‘Imagining “Breaking Bad” Open World Game in Unreal Engine 5!” and it’s… okay.
The video was made and released by YouTuber Teaser Play, a channel that showcases games, series, and movies as they could be if rendered in Unreal Engine 5 as games.
The gaming concept footage uses well-clipped sound bites from the series and opens with an iconic moment of Walter White meeting people out in the desert where most of the video is set.
The video generally shows iconic scenes from Breaking Bad and is relatively well made, however, the graphics could be better, the timing of animations is off and in general the animation could be much smoother. Despite that, it’s still a fun concept.
We’d totally be keen on a Breaking Bad game.
Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan recently discussed all of the potential video games for the beloved TV series and noted that he had discussed a Grand Theft Auto-like adaptation at one point:
“I’m not much of a video game player, but how can you not know Grand Theft Auto,” said Gilligan. I remember saying to the guys, that are off running Apple now, who said yes originally to Breaking Bad, ‘Who owns Grand Theft Auto? Can’t you have a module, can there be a Breaking Bad [game]?’ [It] still makes sense to me! That never came to fruition. There have been quite a few attempts at video games, some of them kind of made it to market. We tried to do a VR experience with the Sony PlayStation VR headset. We did a mobile game that lasted for a little while.”
Even though a Breaking Bad game hasn’t happened yet, Vince Gilligan (who mentions that he wrote 3 or 4 games already) thinks it still “makes sense”.
Breaking Bad
Breaking Bad is a criminal drama series that first aired on 20th January 2008. In the series, Walter White, a Chemistry teacher discovers that he has cancer and decides to get into the meth-making business to repay his medical debts. His priorities begin to change when he partners with Jesse. The series depicts Walter’s fall from grace and into crime, and all of his exploits on his way to criminal mastermind.
It actually sounds perfect for a video game when you think about it.
The series was created by Vince Gilligan and has 5 seasons in total. It was originally streaming on AMC but is now streaming on Netflix. The series is a bit of a cult classic and even has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 96%.
Breaking Bad sees a cast of actors like Bryan Cranston as Walter White, Aaron Paul as Jesse Pinkman, Anna Gunn as Skylar White, RJ Mitte as Walter “Flynn” White Jr, Dean Norris as Hank Schrader, Bety Brandt as Marie Schrader, Giancarlo Esposito as Gus Fring, and Nobody’s Bob Odenkirk as Saul Goodman.
Just imagine if the actors returned to voice the characters for a Breaking Bad game. That would be amazing.
Better Call Saul
Breaking Bad birthed a spinoff series, Better Call Saul that first aired on 8th February 2015 by the same creator, Vince Gilligan alongside Peter Gould. In the series, ex-con artist Jimmy McGill turns into a small-time attorney and goes through a series of trials and tragedies, as he transforms into his alter ego Saul Goodman, a morally challenged lawyer. Almost the opposite of its predecessor, Better Call Saul is the story of a man trying to come right from his criminal past.
To be honest, the next best thing to a Breaking Bad game would be a Better Call Saul game.
The series has 6 seasons so far and is still currently ongoing, seeing the release of its Season 6 Episode 13 on the 15th of August 2022. Just like the previous series, the original network for the series was AMC but is now available on AMC+ as of 2022. Better Call Saul has an even better rating on Rotten Tomatoes than its predecessor with a 98% rating.
The cast of actors sees plenty of overlap with Breaking Bad, like the main character Saul Goodman played by Bob Odenkirk, Bryan Cranston as Walter White, Arron Paul as Jesse Pinkman among others, but also sees new blood like Rhea Seehorn as Kim Wexler, Patrick Fabian as Howard Hamlin, Michael Mando as Nacho Varga, Michael McKean as Chuck McGill and Cara Pifko as Paige Novick.