This article contains WandaVision spoilers. Don’t read if you haven’t watched the series.
With WandaVision ending this past week, a lot of people have the reality-bending short series on their minds. The way it plays with different show formats is inspired, as it really takes advantage of the television medium. This is why I’d like to propose a WandaVision video game; one that would utilize the familiar trappings of games in the same evocative way that the show does with television. How would a game like that work, you ask, whether you choose to or not? I’m glad you asked. Let’s get weird, shall we?
My immediate thought when envisioning a WandaVision game was episodic content set primarily in the adventure genre. The show tends to divide its different settings by episodes, which I think is a format that should be brought over through a five episode season. This would let the developers flex their creative muscles in different ways with each episode, without having to pad any of the story for the sake of additional episodes. Before we go on, let’s address a narrative question: Why are we experiencing different video game time periods instead of television programs?
This would be an alternate take on WandaVision where Vision mentally creates the perfect virtual world for himself and Wanda in the form of a video game– VisionWanda, if you will. Being that he began life as an A.I. and contains essentially the entirety of human knowledge, plus a fondness for logical conundrums, I could see him choosing to make a world centered around (primarily) logic-based puzzles. The problem is that the world gets corrupted upon Vision’s death, becoming infected by his trauma from dying twice. This makes for an excellent adventure game, where the newly-integrated White Vision has to navigate a corrupted virtual world in order to truly become the Vision.
If the developers wanted to be really daring, the first episode could be a purely text-based adventure like Zork, or with the occasional picture like Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy to represent Vision’s origin as a faceless AI. The first episode is so basic because it’s been almost entirely lost to the corruption, leaving only the most simple game assets remaining. Maybe there are some fun fail-screens for if you type in something like “Am I dead?” or “What’s going on?” for the players who already know what’s happening in the story.
As White Vision starts to gain control over the situation (or at least realize what he’s doing) Episode 2 becomes more advanced. The game becomes more refined and controlled, and the freedom of pure text-based games is restricted. This turns VisionWanda into a more Monkey Island type of game, with the swashbuckling adventures of Captain Wanda and First Mate Vision. The player picks up items and solves puzzles by combining things and using various senses, though some items (like an Infinity Gauntlet) are bugged and can’t be used properly. This makes Wanda begin to suspect something is wrong, but Vision reassures you and himself that the game is going as planned.
With more control comes a more refined game, preferably one with rudimentary 3D visuals like Grim Fandango. Detectives Wanda Maximoff and Victor “Vision” Shade are supposed to be investigating the murder of a butler named Jarvis by the mysterious Crimson Cowl, but Wanda keeps getting distracted by the bugged items. There’s something weird going on, as both the player and Wanda suspect the game is rigged. As the player begins to investigate the world around them, they have to use bugged items from Episode 2 and end up in a debug room. The episode ends immediately.
As the player gets too close to the truth, Episode 4 turns into a streamlined “adventure” game as a failsafe mechanism, a la Telltale Games’ Guardians of the Galaxy. It’s a bombastic superhero adventure, but things are much more on-the-rails, as you can’t explore much or wander off the intended path. Conversations and quicktime events are much more prominent than puzzles and free-roaming, as Vision wants to avoid confronting. No matter what choices you make, the story never deviates off its path. You reach the final boss, Thanos, and you seem to win the Infinity War-inspired fight. Until Vision remembers what really happened and goes into shock, leading to Thanos “killing” Vision, traumatizing Wanda, and ending the episode.
Finally, VisionWanda turns into a first-person puzzle game like The Witness. This is the closest the game gets to Vision’s mind in the present moment, as you explore a seemingly empty world to find answers as to what’s going on. Through thought-provoking puzzles, the player and Vision experience the trauma that Vision experienced upon dying twice. With few words, players live through Vision’s final thoughts with Wanda and try to bring him peace. This leads to Vision and Wanda both accepting his death, ending the game as White Vision completes his calibration.
This approach to a WandaVision game would give fans of the show a new story to obsess over while bending the traditional format of adventure games over the years to create a fully unique experience. This makes it thematically in-line with WandaVision, rather than a simple adaptation. In the way that WandaVision explored Wanda’s grief, VisionWanda could explore Vision’s trauma, creating a symmetrical story that is told not just across eras, but across mediums. As Vision approaches the source of the trauma, the game becomes more complicated and difficult, until the end where, upon confronting his death, White Vision becomes the Vision– the person he’s meant to be.
Plus, the episodic format also allows for fan speculation and theorizing between episodes. This was a huge part of WandaVision’s appeal in the hardcore fandom, as you can see in one of the many episode Reddit threads. I can picture some feverish discussion about what adventure games will have homages next, or how the Game Over screen has an obscure reference to Mephisto in it.
I think that WandaVision could have a great video game that explores trauma and eras within video game development similar to how the show explores grief and eras of television. WandaVision holds a lot of potential across different formats, but I think an interactive adventure would truly be a Vision to behold.
