Anime and video games have always had a weird overlap. The same people who stay up until 3 am watching one more episode are usually the same ones who say “just one more run” at midnight. So it’s kind of wild that some of the most cinematic, story-driven, visually stunning games out there still haven’t gotten the anime treatment.
Think about what happened when Arcane dropped, or when Castlevania reminded everyone that game adaptations don’t have to be disasters. There’s clearly a blueprint now. A good adaptation doesn’t just retell the game; it gets inside it.
Some games feel like they were practically begging for this from day one. Rich lore, iconic characters, worlds that are way too big to fully explore in a single playthrough. These are the 10 that deserve the full anime treatment, and honestly, it’s kind of criminal that none of them have it yet!
1. 13 Sentinels Aegis Rim
Vanillaware spent over six years building this game, and the result is honestly one of the most anime things to never actually be an anime. Thirteen high school students, giant mechs, kaiju attacks, fractured timelines, and a mysterious talking cat. Reviewers constantly compared it to Neon Genesis Evangelion and Steins;Gate, and those aren’t exaggerations.
The game is already structured like a prestige anime series, thirteen distinct character arcs slowly weaving into one massive sci-fi mystery. Vanillaware’s visuals are literally painted like anime storyboards. Strip away the combat, adapt the story, and you’d have something special. The fact that this hasn’t happened yet is genuinely baffling.
2. Bioshock
An underwater city built as a utopia for the world’s greatest minds, completely collapsed into madness. That’s Rapture, and it’s one of the most compelling settings ever created in gaming. Ken Levine’s 2007 masterpiece from Irrational Games sits at a 96 on Metacritic, and the series has sold over 43 million copies, yet no studio has attempted an anime version.
The world practically writes the scripts itself. The political collapse of Rapture, the tragedy of the Little Sisters, and Andrew Ryan as a villain with actual philosophical depth. Netflix already has a film adaptation in development, which means the lore is clearly ripe for it. An anime prequel exploring Rapture before everything fell apart would be untouchable.
3. Legend of Zelda
Over 180 million copies sold. Multiple perfect review scores. Ocarina of Time still holds a Metacritic score of 99, the highest-rated game in Guinness World Records history. Nintendo’s crown jewel has been around since 1986, and while a short 1989 American cartoon exists, the franchise has never been adapted into a full Japanese anime series.
The world of Hyrule is practically built for it. An epic fantasy setting, a silent hero, a princess with ancient power, a villain who keeps coming back across centuries. The lore runs deep enough to fill multiple seasons. There’s even an official manga series by Akira Himekawa that proved the stories translate beautifully outside of gameplay. Nintendo is notoriously protective of its IP, which is the only real explanation for why this hasn’t happened yet.
4. Octopath Traveller
Square Enix and Acquire accidentally created the perfect anime blueprint in 2018 and then just left it sitting there. The HD-2D art style alone, pixel sprites layered over high-definition 3D environments, looks more cinematic than most actual anime adaptations. Six million copies sold across the series, and still nothing.
What makes it such an obvious candidate is the structure. Eight travelers, each with a completely self-contained storyline set in the same world, yet every single one carries a different tone and genre. There’s a dancer hunting her father’s killers, a scholar chasing forbidden knowledge, and an apothecary on a journey to heal the sick, and to make it even better, they all exist in the same world without stepping on each other. Everything’s already storyboarded, Octopath Traveller just needs an animator to bring it to life.
5. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
PlatinumGames took a cancelled Kojima Productions project, rewrote the entire thing in two months, and “accidentally” developed one of the most beloved action games of the decade. Released in 2013, it sits at 95% positive reviews on Steam with over 67,000 ratings.
Raiden is a child soldier turned half-human cyborg ninja slicing through a near-future world of private military companies and political conspiracy. The story goes places that feel tailor-made for a prestige anime treatment, corrupt ideology, identity crisis, and genuinely unhinged boss fights with actual philosophical debates mid-sword duel. The memes alone kept this game alive for over a decade. In fact, an anime would send it completely over the edge.
6. Reverse 1999
Bluepoch launched their debut game in October 2023 with zero existing IP, no franchise name to lean on, and somehow crossed $100 million in revenue and 15 million installs anyway. The reason is simple: the characters are not only unforgettable but also crazily unique. There is a girl made of televisions, a sentient apple, and even a time-displaced Victorian occultist. In truth, the roster reads like fever dream anime character sheet.
The world runs on mysterious storms that reverse time, pulling figures from different eras of the 20th century into each other’s timelines. It’s weird, stylish, and dripping with cinematic energy. For a gacha game, the writing punches embarrassingly high. The fanbase has been asking for an adaptation since launch, and honestly, it’s hard to argue with them.
7. Project Moon
A South Korean studio founded by college students with a company motto of “Wealth and Honor.” That’s Project Moon, and somehow, everything they make feels like it was built by a team three times their size. Three games deep into a shared dystopian universe called the City, starting with Lobotomy Corporation in 2018 and running through to Limbus Company in 2023, each entry expands the same brutal, hyper-capitalist world where corporations own everything and human life is basically optional.
The lore is dense enough to fill multiple anime seasons without even trying. Thirteen sinners based on literary classics, monsters born from human thought, and a world that reads like Evangelion crossed with Franz Kafka. The fanbase has already built out entire wikis, fan animations, and theory threads. Clearly, an adaptation isn’t just deserved, it’s basically overdue.
8. Honkai Impact 3rd
Before Genshin Impact, before Honkai: Star Rail, there was Honkai Impact 3rd, launched in 2016 and now sitting at over $1 billion in total revenue. The studio that eventually became HoYoverse started as a tiny student-run team, and in less than eight years, they grew into a company that built a science-fantasy universe that left millions emotionally wrecked.
The story follows Valkyries fighting a mysterious force called the Honkai that corrupts humans and triggers apocalyptic events, but the real draw is the character writing. The bond between Kiana, Mei, and Bronya really sticks with you, growing and changing through years of story content.
miHoYo has released animated shorts and manhua to expand the lore, but a full-scale anime adaptation of the main story still doesn’t exist. Given what Castlevania proved about game adaptations done right, this one feels like a massive missed opportunity.
9. Shin Megami Tensei
Atlus has been making games about demons, moral collapse, and the end of the world since 1987, and somehow the franchise still doesn’t have a mainstream anime adaptation. The entire Megami Tensei universe has sold over 40 million units and grossed more than $2 billion across all its titles, which makes the absence even harder to explain.
The core SMT games drop you into post-apocalyptic Japan where you recruit demons, pick a side between Law, Chaos, and Neutral, and watch entire civilizations crumble based on your choices. Dark, philosophical, and genuinely unpredictable. The Persona spinoffs get all the cultural attention, but the mainline series has a brutal, uncompromising tone that would hit completely different as a prestige anime.
10. Genshin Impact
The animated shorts miHoYo drops for Genshin events routinely hit millions of views within days. The fanbase isn’t asking for an anime at this point; they’re basically demanding it. $6.4 billion in revenue and 225 million downloads since 2020, and the best we’ve gotten are promotional clips.
Which is genuinely frustrating because Teyvat is built for long-form storytelling. The whole thing starts with twins who travel across worlds, get separated by a god, and one of them spends years crossing seven completely different nations trying to find the other. Every nation has its own culture, its own political drama, its own god sitting at the top with secrets they’re not sharing. The further you go, the more the mystery deepens. Since miHoYo clearly knows how to animate, a full commitment to an actual anime series feels inevitable at this point, just a matter of when.
