It's hard to believe that after four mega-popular movie adaptations of Suzanne Collins's bestselling The Hunger Games trilogy, which earned roughly $3 billion at the international box office, there has yet to be an official video game based on the series. If ever there was a premise perfectly suited for a free-for-all royal rumble to play at home or online, The Hunger Games is it.
However, just because there has yet to be an official game bearing The Hunger Games title, that doesn't mean Katniss Everdeen and her perilous position in Panem hasn't inspired similar-themed video games in the past.
Hunger Games: Girl On Fire (2012)
As an ancillary tie-in to promote The Hunger Games movie in 2012, an iOS game exclusively made for the iPhone and iPad called Hunger Games: Girl On Fire was published by CANABALT.
Adhering to the plot of the first novel and the movie in the series, Girl On Fire allows players to help Katniss to evade the tracker jackers, use her trademark bow to fend off enemies, and escort her back to District 12 before it's too late. While it's technically inspired by The Hunger Games, Girl on Fire is still a minor affair aimed at a limited market.
Hyper Scape (2020)
Ubisoft's 2020 first-person shooter battle royale game Hyper Scape offers a different wrinkle than most titles of its ilk. Rather than only featuring a map that shrinks as time progresses, certain strategic vectors from the map randomly disappear during critical missions.
At its core, the game consists of up to 100 players who are delivered to a destination and forced into a winner-take-all deathmatch. Instead of losing when a player dies, they become Echoes that can send warning signals to their teammates and be respawned if successful.
Z1 Battle Royale (2018)
One title clearly inspired by The Hunger Games, which was in turn inspired by the Japanese cult-classic Battle Royale, includes the 2018 release of the free-to-play survival game Z1.
Z1 Battle Royale features 100 players pitted against each other in a bloody fight to the death. As time passes, a noxious gas cloud reduces the size of the map and forces players to confront each other in close proximity. Players can choose to play solo, in pairs, or groups of five, with the lone survivors (or teams) being declared victorious. The game is popular on Steam, Microsoft Windows, and Ps4.
Darwin Project (2020)
Released in January 2020 by Scavengers Studios, Darwin Project is a free-to-play dystopian battle royale game available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. The game consists of 10 prisoners dumped onto a snowy post-apocalyptic landscape in Canada as the next Ice Age approaches.
With access to six additional biomes, the prisoners must survive using only an ax and a bow as they forge fires, build camps, carve arrows, and forage for natural resources. Additional tools include beartraps, tripwires, and snowballs. The final survivor wins the game.
The Culling (2016)
Developed and published by Xaviant in 2016, The Culling is another free-to-play battle royale game that features 16 characters dropped onto an island or prison complex, where they must complete a series of tasks in order to collect a form of currency called F.U.N.C.
Players collect F.U.N.C. to purchase materials they can use to fashion weapons and upgrade their fighting status. When they aren't killing each other for ultimate dominance, players must traverse caves, mines, faulty bridges, toxic gas, barrel bombs, and more.
ARK: Survival Evolved (2015)
Available on all major platforms, ARK: Survival Evolved is an open-world survival action-adventure in which players must outwit and outlast a series of menacing prehistoric beasts, inclement weather, and dastardly human beings.
In addition to surviving, players must tame the 176 different creatures (mostly dinosaurs) by using clubs, tranquilizers, and other modes of subduing the ancient beasts. The game includes single-player, multi-player, and PvE modes.
Apex Legends (2019)
Available to play on PC, PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and iOS/Android devices, EA's Apex Legends is a free-to-play battle royale game in which 60 people land on an island and are broken into teams of two or three before collecting weapons an engaging in all-out war. The final team alive is declared victorious.
With the island shrinking over time, defeating as many foes as quickly as possible becomes imperative to survival. The gameplay is broken into eight seasons that introduce new characters, and 15 limited-time events that must be completed in a timely fashion.
Call Of Duty: Warzone (2020)
One of the absolute best Hunger Games-inspired video games to play includes the Battle Royale mode of Call of Duty: Warzone. With up to 150 possible players in a single match, the game requires players to accrue Cash in order to procure new weapons and survival gadgets.
If a player dies in combat, they don't necessarily lose the game. Instead, they are sent back to the Gulag, where they are given one chance to win a one-on-one fight with an opponent who has the same weapon in order to be respawned into the game.
Fortnite Battle Royale (2017)
Developed and published by Epic Games in 2017, Fortnite Battle Royale is among the best and most popular video games to draw inspiration from the basic Hunger Games plotline.
The game consists of 100 players skydiving onto a secluded island where they must forage for survival gear and weaponry used to fight and kill other players. As the game progresses, the island shrinks and forces players into a ticking-clock scenario. Gameplay modes offer solo missions or teams of two, three, and four.
PlayerUnknown's Battleground (2017)
The single-best game to play for fans of The Hunger Games is PlayerUnknown's Battleground, the wildly popular battle royale game created by the South Korean PUBG Corporation. In terms of quality and popularity, it's Fortnite Battle Royale's biggest rival.
With up to 100 deathmatch contestants parachuting onto an island and waging an all-out war of survival, the game is a player-vs-player shooter that has been praised for its fresh gameplay design and eminent replayability.