Two weeks ago, prolific fantasy author Brandon Sanderson announced that his new book, Isles of the Emberdark, would be arriving months ahead of schedule. That news gave me the motivation to finish my first read through of the Cosmere, pushing through the end of Wind and Truth and The Sunlit Man.
This was exciting for a few reasons. For one, it’s a reading project I’ve had going since early 2024, and it’s nice to be done. For two, it means I can finally dive deep into the Cosmere’s wiki, the Coppermind. This is something I’ve been longing to do for a while, like whenever I hit a dense bit of lore in one of the books that I’m struggling to remember, but have stayed away from for fear of spoilers. And, most importantly, I can finally write this list.
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While reading Sanderson’s work, it’s borderline impossible not to think of how his books would translate to video games. Like game designers, he builds worlds that are governed by interesting rules. He’s known for his laws of magic, meaning his magic systems are surprising yet predictable, following established logic. Just like mechanics in a video game.
This piece will contain minor spoilers for the premise, world, and magic system of each book discussed.
Elantris
In Elantris, a city occupied by divine, magical beings falls. The power that elevated the residents of the titular city to near-godhood goes bad, condemning Elantrians to a zombie-like existence. They can’t die, but they can’t heal either, so they perpetually feel any pain they experience, however small, for the rest of their lives. Until, that is, they’re driven mad.
As the book begins, Raoden, a prince who resides in the neighboring city of Kae, wakes to find that he has succumbed to the same sickness. He’s sentenced to live out the rest of his life within the walls of Elantris.
From here, a game version could take two very different paths. At its heart, Elantris is a mystery story. As Raoden discovers more about the city, he gets closer and closer to discovering the secret of the Elantrian’s fall. Sanderson weaves the plot and world-building together expertly, so that as the story unfolds, so too does the world. Elantris could work well as a detective game that tasks players with piecing together the mystery for themselves.
The big problem with that? Sanderson’s fans, the prime audience for an adaptation like this, have already read the book. They know where the story is going so the mystery, as written, wouldn’t work for them. Of course, a developer could expand the mystery beyond the scope of the book, a la the point-and-click adaptations of Discworld from the ’90s.
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How Would You Design A Game Based On Mistborn?
Epic fantasy author Brandon Sanderson is a household name today, but in 2006, he was just beginning to turn some heads with Mistborn’s first volume, The Final Empire. How would you adapt the world of the original trilogy (or the Wax and Wayne four-parter) into a game?
Mistborn: Era 1
In the past, I’ve written about how Mistborn would make a fantastic immersive sim, and I stand by that. The first Mistborn book, in particular, is focused on a superpowered team of ‘allomancers’ pulling off an impossible heist. This crew gain their powers by ingesting metals which, when ignited within their bodies, grant special abilities. They intend to use those powers to rob the Lord Ruler, an incredibly powerful (and evil) emperor who has ruled for 1000 years.
To do that, lead character Kelsier, puts together a team of collaborators, each gifted with abilities from one metal. The foppish Breeze can burn brass to soothe emotions. The soldier Ham can use pewter to increase his endurance and physical strength. The cranky Clubs ingests copper to produce allomantic clouds, preventing anyone else from detecting his, or the crew’s, presence. As a Mistborn, Kelsier is one of the rare allomancers who can use every metal, pushing himself through the air with the help of steel, pulling metallic objects to himself with iron, and many more.
Those powers provide a perfect skill set for an immersive sim, and the first book especially follows Vin, a young Mistborn, as she goes undercover as a noblewoman at garish balls thrown by the elite. That screams Dishonored to me.
Warbreaker
Warbreaker has a very interesting magic system that could work surprisingly well in video game form. In this world, magic is stored in breaths (like, your literal breath, but it’s also kinda your soul) and powerful people have many breaths. Living gods on this world are given the life power of members of the populace as a form of religious sacrifice. The greater your breath, the greater your perception of the world around you. Colors are brighter, sounds are louder, textures are more detailed. But breaths can’t be stolen, they must be freely given.
But you can also give breath to inanimate objects and have them do your bidding. It could work like Mario Odyssey‘s possession system, or like Pokémon.
The Stormlight Archive
The Stormlight Archive has its basis in video games, as the series’ iconic Shardblades were inspired by Sanderson seeing a massive sword in a Musou game and asking himself why someone would need a sword that big. Despite those origins, a Dynasty Warriors-style 1-vs-1000 wouldn’t be the right genre fit for Stormlight.
No, this is Sanderson’s huge fantasy epic — seriously, it’s planned to be ten volumes long when it’s finished and none of the five entries released so far have been under 1000 pages — and it deserves a huge game. An open-world action RPG would be the right fit. Let me hang out in the massive library of Kharbranth, explore the chasms of the Shattered Plains, and crack a cold one (Horneater White, natch) on the banks of the Pure Lake.
Everything I’m referencing is introduced in the first book, The Way of Kings, but a video game would have even more to work with if it was set during a later book, like Oathbringer.
It would need to have a focus on resource management, too, as Roshar’s magic and technology alike are fueled by the titular energy, captured during storms in spheres. A calendar system that dictated where the storm was on Roshar at all times would be a must.
Mistborn: Era 2
Everything you liked about Mistborn, now with a Sherlock Holmes and Western-inspired twist. Mistborn Era 2’s introduction of guns would allow for a shift away from the cloak-and-dagger imsim gameplay of Dishonored in favor of the expressive power-based blasting of BioShock.
Tress of the Emerald Sea
Tress of the Emerald Sea is one of Sanderson’s video game-iest premises. In the lighthearted fantasy inspired by The Princess Bride, a young woman from an isolated island sets out to save the guy she loves when he’s kidnapped by an evil witch. The twist? The island isn’t surrounded by ocean waters, but by a sea of spores set in motion by oxidization.
When they get wet, they have curious effects. The emerald spores surrounding Tress’ island grow into huge oaky vines when wet, but others in other seas have different reactions. An open-world action game that cast players as pirates traversing the various seas, collecting new spores, and dealing with pirates could be aces.
Yumi And The Nightmare Painter
Half the game is Mario Paint but your teacher is a moody teenage boy. The other half is the rock-stacking minigame from Ghost of Tsushima.
The Sunlit Man
The Sunlit Man would make a fantastic survival game. In the fourth Secret Project book, Sanderson introduces a worldhopper named Nomad who finds himself stranded on Canticle, a small planet with an incredibly powerful sun that destroys everything in its path. Plants grow incredibly quickly, with farmers planting crops and harvesting them in the space of a few hours. The people who occupy this planet are necessarily itinerant, living in cities composed of ships that can interlock then break apart as needed.
Those ships are powered by orbs called Sunhearts, fueled by the souls of the dead who are passed over by the sun. So, when elderly members of this society are ready, they volunteer to be left behind so that their comrades can collect their energy during their next trip around the sun.
Though the book’s story involves Nomad finding a way to disrupt this system, a cool survival game could be set in the midst of it as the people of Canticle attempt to survive and fight back against the tyrannical Cinder King while finding Sunhearts, repairing vehicles, and keeping their city constantly moving around the planet.
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