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Did You Know Tom Cruise’s 2017 The Mummy Had 2 Video Game Sequels That Were Actually… Pretty Great?

Ancient curses, secret sarcophagi, and slumbering supernatural forces just waiting to be stirred — for as long as there’s been screen entertainment, there’s been an appetite for mythic monster stories that go intrepidly exploring history’s darkest, most forsaken places. 

For more than a century, Universal Pictures has been crafting a creepy-movie playground from its roster of Universal Monsters, creatures that scratch fans’ instinctive itch to poke at riddles and mysteries whose horror-tinged solutions usually involve fighting (or fleeing from) the scariest manifestations of our existential dread. Tom Cruise stepped into the bold explorer’s role for The Mummy (playing this month on SYFY — check the schedule here!), a Universal reboot that’s only grown more fun to watch since the time of its 2017 release in theaters. 

Not a curse: The Mummy reboot spawned two great video games

It almost seems a shame to limit spooky stories like The Mummy only to movies, and in 2017, Universal thought so, too. That’s how The Mummy ended up with an accompanying duo of cross-promotional video games; tie-in titles that — despite their obscurity today — earned high praise from reviewers for their engrossing narratives and thematically dialed-in sense of spirited exploration. 

Thanks to the eventual shuttering of its server-based support platform, no one today can play The Mummy: Dark Universe Stories, an always-online mobile game designed to let players choose their own The Mummy adventure. Set within the Universal Monsters lore-verse and taking place after the events of the movie itself, developer WayForward Technologies created Dark Universe Stories as an episodic expansion of the ongoing adventures of Nick Morton (Cruise’s character), with each new installment meant to promote the then-emerging Dark Universe film franchise. 

The other tie-in game, The Mummy Demastered (developed by game studio Night School), is still available for anyone with a Steam, Xbox Store, or Nintendo eShop account. A 16-bit “Metroidvania” style adventure game that lets players unlock more of their environment as they explore, The Mummy Demastered unfolds roughly alongside the concurrent events of the movie, tasking players with fighting off undead enemies led by main mummy Ahmanet (played in the film by Sofia Boutella). 

What’s really wild about both games is how well they were received by critics — especially amid a gaming landscape that often treats movie tie-ins as underdeveloped afterthoughts. Pocket Gamer found “a fun, well-written adventure” wrapped inside The Mummy: Dark Universe Stories and its chapter-based narrative (“The writing is witty and the dialogue well-realized”), while GameSpot called The Mummy Demastered “a creative and action-packed adventure” that “brims with challenging old-school charm” in its favorable review — and what’s more, they weren’t the only ones.

Not too shabby, eh? — particularly for a pair of promotional titles meant mostly to stand in The Mummy’s larger-than-life movie shadow. And while the games might’ve faded to a near-dormant state, The Mummy isn’t exactly the kind of movie franchise to be deterred by a trifling few millennia of supernatural sleep. Catch Cruise and Boutella alongside Russell Crowe, Jake Johnston, and Courtney B. Vance in The Mummy, now in this month’s movie rotation on SYFY. Click here to view the full TV schedule!

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