Craig Mazin was best known for his work on HBO’s Chernobyl before he delivered another hit with The Last of Us series adaptation.
It’s no mystery that Mazin loves games, but when asked by BAFTA about what existing series he would want to adapt as a game, he says that he thinks Vince Gilligan’s Breaking Bad would be his pick. Mazin explains:
“It would be Breaking Bad; but I want the game mostly to be about lying to your wife and friends (laughs), so it’s not a lot of action. It’s mostly just Skyler starting to figure it out, and you just have to keep lying to her and Hank.
Mazin continues, “There’s a meter that shows how much meth you’ve made that day, and also how paranoid you are, and how close other people are to figuring out the truth of who you are. I mean, I would play that game.”
If you’re taking the pitch seriously, this could probably work as a narrative game like Life is Strange or any of the Telltale titles; but seeing as how action-packed Breaking Bad is, I can imagine something close to GTA where you have to make drugs, distribute drugs, and fight for territory.
I mean, the Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul universe is colorful enough to turn into an open-world crime game, but will it ever live up to the series in terms of narrative? That’s probably the biggest challenge with that idea.
If anything, Netflix can probably just make a reskin of a puzzle game and offer that for subscribers to play. Who knows, maybe someone already came up with the idea back when the series was still coming out.
For now, catch Mazin’s The Last of Us Season 2 which just ended on HBO Max.
