Roblox, the all-ages sandbox game that encourages players to create their own worlds, is reportedly getting two loose TV adaptations. As revealed by Deadline, Roblox games Creatures of Sonaria and Twilight Daycare Series are in the process of being adapted for TV, with production company Wind Sun Sky (Invincible) working alongside Productivity Media to create these stories alive in episodic, scripted fashion.
Creatures of Sonaria, developed in Roblox by Sonar Studios, is a ‘Work In Progress’ survival game that enables players to embody a variety of magical creatures, including dragons and sea beasts, to explore an idyllic world.
‘I'm very excited to work with Catherine [Winder, WSS], Jay [Bennett, WSS] and the innovative team of storytellers at Wind Sun Sky to add narrative depth to our characters and in turn further engage and delight our fans in a whole new way,’ Samuel Garcia of game publisher Twin Atlas said of the project.
It appears video game adaptations are now hot property in Hollywood – although it’s the ‘metaverse’ mechanics of Roblox that have the symptoms of caught the interest of executives at Wind Sun Sky.
‘Because the partnership of PMI and WSS expands, we will continue to look for rich universes with cross platform, immersive potential, like Creatures of Sonaria, to partner up with and extend in to the type of gamified storyworlds that global audiences and fans are searching for within the metaverse,’ Catherine Winder of Wind Sun Sky and William Santor of Productivity Media said inside a joint statement.
Given the enthusiasm of the metaverse has already been winding down, the decision appears like an unusual one – but because of the popularity around Roblox and its many worlds, an adaptation could find ground using the game’s younger audience.
Much attention in Deadline‘s report is focussed on the narrative potential of Creatures of Sonaria, which is essentially another twist around the monster-raising formula popularised by Spore – but little is famous about the other newly-revealed project, Twilight Daycare Series.
This role-playing adventure game produced by Nighty Studio is also built-in Roblox, and allows players to maintain kids, or be a caretaker. The narrative here seems lighter on the floor, so its optioning for TV is a bigger mystery.
While these games are very unlikely candidates for adaptation, that isn’t stopping the gears of the entertainment industry, as it seeks out new video game properties to evolve – titles like HBO’s The Last of Us are breaking viewership records for the network, and The Mario Bros. Movie is preparing to create a splash within the months to come. We’ll likely learn more about these projects in the coming months.
