There’s Never Been A More Perfect Time For A New Planet Of The Apes Game

Even before the recent reboot, Planet of the Apes was one of the biggest and well-known franchises of all time. So it might surprise you to learn that there have only been five video games (and one themed DLC) based on the franchise released since its inception. The last one, which was a VR exclusive title known as Crisis on the Planet of the Apes, was released all the way back in 2018.

Prior to that, it was 2017’s Planet of the Apes: Last Frontier, which took place between 2014’s Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and 2017’s War for the Planet of the Apes. Unlike Crisis, Last Frontier was a morally ambiguous game that had a strong focus on narrative, similar to the likes of Telltale Games’ The Walking Dead, and was less gameplay-orientated.

Astro Bot Excluding VR Is Sad, But It’s For The Best

Sorry, fellow VR players. This one should stay flat.

With Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes being such a huge success earlier this year, I’d argue that now is the perfect time for a new, triple-a Planet of the Apes game that ties into the current series. Not only has it been far too long since we’ve received a game set within the Planet of the Apes universe, but none of them have ever really been that good.

Planet Of The Apes Deserves A Good Game Adaptation

As I previously mentioned, there have only been five video games based on the Planet of the Apes series, despite it being one of the most well-known franchises of all time. But the worst thing is, none of the video games associated with the series have ever really been that good.

The first Planet of the Apes game was developed in the 80s for the Atari 2600, but it didn’t see the light of day until 2003 when it was released as ‘Revenge of the Apes’. Originally conceptualised as an official Planet of the Apes game, development was never completed due to the closure of 20th Century Fox’s video game branch, resulting in the loss of the game for many years. Until 2002 that is, when it was rediscovered, tinkered with, and then released to the public in 2003 as ‘Revenge of the Apes’ due to copyright and licensing issues.

Then came along multiple Planet of the Apes games in 2001, all published by Ubisoft. In total, there were four different versions of the game released, but really, it was just two different games on multiple platforms.

Both games were titled Planet of the Apes, with a Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Colour version and then a PlayStation 1 and PC version. The idea was that these games would tie into the 2001 reboot by Tim Burton, but due to multiple delays, the games didn’t have anything to go off of, which meant they were… forgettable, to say the least. The PC version currently sits at a pretty abysmal score of 41 on Metacritic.

Then, 16 years later, Planet of the Apes: Last Frontier arrived with a slightly less abysmal score of 59 on Metacritic. Visually, it’s one of the best-looking Planet of the Apes games we’ve ever gotten (although, that’s really not saying much). But, gameplay-wise, there isn’t really any, as this is a narrative-driven point-and-click game.

Finally, just one year later, we received a VR tie-in known as Crisis on the Planet of the Apes. It had the most gameplay out of all the titles released, but, again, just wasn’t that good. It sits at 49 on Metacritic, proving my point that we have just never received a good Planet of the Apes game.

Considering the series reboot has a much more impressive Metacritic score between 68 and 82 across all four movies, doesn’t this iconic franchise deserve a genuinely good video game adaptation?

There’s Never Been A More Perfect Time

The Planet of the Apes series is an iconic franchise that has been around for decades, but there’s no denying that 2011’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes propelled the series into critical acclaim. If we ignore Tim Burton’s questionable remake attempt in 2001, it had been almost fifty years since the last Planet of the Apes movie.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes was not only a critical success, but its three sequels have been just as massive, meaning there’s a whole new market likely being exposed to the series for the very first time. And with video games evolving night and day since the original movies, now is the perfect time to capitalise on not only the huge success of the franchise, but also video game technology and interest being at its peak.

As reiterated in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the series writer-producer duo Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver plan to make nine Planet of the Apes movies in total, with the recently released Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes movie being the fourth. With each entry finding huge success, it’s likely that Jaffa and Silver get their wish of nine movies, meaning now would be the perfect time to develop a video game tie-in.

Like many other movie-goers, I was eager to know what happened to Cornelius between the events of War and Kingdom. Maybe a video game based on Ceaser’s son could fill the gap? Come on, Disney, make it happen.