Although it's a bit different from examples like Tomb Raider 1, with it's atmospheric environmental storytelling of an original world, I was thinking about games that capture the specific environmental 'feel' and 'tone' of a popular pre-existing franchise. This used to be a special skill of developers like
LucasArts,
Interplay and
Microprose. In the 1990s, there were a number of Star Trek and Star Wars games, that really nailed the subtle atmosphere, appeal and identity of those franchises. This was accomplished using immersive sound design, suggestive level design, franchise theme music, solid fandom understanding of how institutions or people might communicate and behave within those universes, and wide-eyed desire to explore outside the theme park inside those settings.
Star Wars: Dark Forces 1 (1995) | Star Wars: Dark Forces 2 (1997)
I think the Codex is well aware of how good the sound design is in LucasArts games like Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight (wind howling in Nar Shaddaa's cavernous megacity, as you walk some lonely skyscraper support beam, occasional ships zooming distantly), but even the blocky level work in DF1 and DF2 suggested the wider ways in which a fictional civilization operated; something as simple as traversing Sulon's water management system, which is appropriatly monolithic and archaic (like some huge brutalist Orwellian Roman aquaduct system; very Star Wars). Often there were no guard rails on a narrow walkway; you 99% wouldn't fall off, but the possibility existed; nowadays the temptation might be a 'balancing minigame' or scripted scene or something, removing that verisimilitude.
They just let you cross the bridge with that subtle fear of falling off; no scripted 'platform giving way', or 'enemies appearing', no rail to prevent out-of-bounds death. It's just a little thing, extending the logic of life-and-death in this world; similar to Tomb Raider's levels not fore-warning that a T-Rex is going to appear, and allowing normal weapons to kill it. It's also the 'fairness' that Dark Souls fans talk about; what kills NPCs, kills you the same.
Star Trek: Generations (1997) | Star Trek: Klingon Honor Guard (1998)
In Star Trek: Generations (an almost forgotton FPS, with item management, star travel, and space battles from 1997), you have items that are thoroughly situated in the internal logic of the setting, such as Klingon and Romulan hyposprays within storage boxes on their planets, replicators serving actual food, including each species ethnic food, cast dialogue that accurately resembles the series, and level design that tells pretty interesting things about the history of the planetary environment. Subsequent Star Trek: Klingon Honor Guard, also by MicroProse, also did a good job in the Unreal engine, making you feel like an alien soldier, even if the middle of the campaign dragged sometimes. I don't think a single human appeared in KHG, because it was so comitted to showing Klingon life.
Aliens versus Predator (2000)
Another example that comes to mind is how satisfying playing the Alien or Predator was in Aliens versus Predator, the 1999 classic.
Nowaways you very rarely, if ever, get that kind of subtle dedication or attention to detail to an existing franchise, with the media often not appreciating the novelty in rare cases where it happens, while players do. The usual explaiantion is that developers need to broaden or dumb down something into a cameo-filled PowerPoint presentation of what their setting is, but I think audiences appreciate depth. In general, a short superificial experience entertains throwaway viewers for a few hours, but depth creates long-term loyalty that pays dividends across time.
Terminator: Resistance (2019)
One exception I came across last year, was Terminator: Resistance from 2019. It's a more slow paced contemplative game, where you have time to prepare pipe bombs, upgrade items, etc, before moving in on a target of military value to the Resistance. They gleefully use the 'Terminator theme' during important moments. A DLC has you take control of a T-800, who has the red digital vision seen in the films, analyses a human M-16 rifle in that utterly pragmatic way seen during the gun store scene in T1; I really appreciate things like that.
You can certainly tell when something is made from genuine love, rather than by corporate slaves robbed of self-respect.
In each case, there was no desire to 'update' anachronisms from the TV shows or movies. Would a sophisticated cybernetic killing machine really see a DOS-style cursor, or a HUD-like display showing target data in the English language? Don't care! It's what the movies showed, and it was badass. The point was to inhabit the authentic world as it was originally presented. Fidelity mattered above all else. I think some franchises made a mistake in recent years by not simply taking the technologies of their era, as a kind of trademark alternate history aesthetic (as Star Wars does with it's gleefully anarchonistic analogue computers, guns, etc, representing a society that just manifested along different lines to us).
