The Predator franchise has been one of the seminal action movie franchises for nearly four decades now. The newest entry in the franchise, Predator Badlands, comes to theaters today for all to enjoy. The film has released to rave reviews, and since taking over the franchise in 2022, director Dan Trachtenberg has been knocking it out of the park with each subsequent film. Going into Predator Badlands, Trachtenberg wasn’t shy about video games being a big inspiration while making this film. Thus, let’s dive in and look at some of the video games that left noticeable marks on the film.

Ratchet & Clank

Predator Badlands‘ two main characters are the Yautja (Predator) Dek and the Synthetic Thia that he comes across. This unlikely duo trope, especially the alien creature and robot dynamic, harkens back to the icon platformer franchise from the PlayStation 2 era in Ratchet & Clank. Much like Dek and Thia, Ratchet and Clank are a dynamic duo that meet early in the first game in the franchise, and since their first meeting in 2002 Ratchet and Clank have become one of gaming’s most iconic duos. From the get go (sans the remake), Ratchet and Clank aren’t just best friends immediately. It takestime for them to warm up to each and build the relationship fans know that they have today. This falls the same for Dek and Thia. Like most movies in the franchise, Predators are solitary and do things on their own. Thus, Dek and Thia aren’t all buddy-buddy immediately, and when they do finally warm up to each other there’s some good comedic gold there.

Much like the duo of Ratchet and Clank, Dek and Thia cover each other and make up for the other’s weaknesses. Like Clank, Thia is smaller and more intelligent than Dek and is even carried on his back as Ratchet does Clank (though she can’t become a helicopter pack). She’s able to get him out of sticky situations that he wouldn’t be able to himself, and provides a more engaging dynamic to the story as a vehicle for the character growth of Dek. Neither would be able to accomplish their goals on their own, but together they are a formidable duo that can take on all challenges they come across. Just like Ratchet and Clank, Dek and Thia nail the unlikely hero/buddy duo extremely well.

Shadow of the Colossus

Shadow of the Colossus is considered one of the best games of all time. From its emotional and unique story to its desolate world to the beauty and scale of the sixteen colossi you must bring down. There are so few characters in the game that most don’t even have names. The main two characters are Wander (the protagonist whose name is never revealed in game) and his horse Agro, and this is the pair throughout the entirety of the game.  It’s a duo that’s completely unlike the aforementioned Ratchet and Clank as there’s no back and forth to go between them. It’s just these two characters exploring the vast beautiful, and desolate world and encountering these beautiful vistas with the colossi you they must fight.

While Predator Badlands was still in production, Trachtenberg specifically mentioned Shadow of the Colossus as one of his inspirations for the film. In his own words, he mentions “wanting to see the Predator with someone else” which makes sense as Predators have never been these characters that can carry a story by themselves. Most incarnations of the Predators we have seen in films have been like Wander; they rarely talk and just go about trying to accomplish their goal. Thus, Trachtenberg wanted to pair a Predator with the opposite of what they have been known for. Thia isn’t a horse like Agro, but the connection forms between the two where they will do what they can to save the other when danger occurs.  The film also captures the beauty of the world even when encountering the dangerous creatures they come up against.

God of War

Since its inception twenty years ago on the PlayStation 2, the God of War franchise has been known for its cinematic form of action gameplay. From the beauty of the environments to the full one-shot camera of the Norse duology, what the games nail most is the sense of scale of the world. The first game in 2005 shows a giant Ares lay waste to Athens in the background as you progress through the level. Whereas the 2018 game has the giant World Serpent Jörmungandr sit in the background while you explore the Lake of Nine area of the game. It gives an incredible sense of scale to the world that most games don’t have.

This relates most to the the opening of Predator Badlands as once crashing landing on Genna, viewers are given a prolonged wide shot of the planet and are just given time to soak in the scale and danger of the planet and the creatures that inhabit it before the title card appears on the screen. This gives the same feeling as the ending of the reveal trailer of the 2018 God of War game from E3 2016. That trailer ends with the camera slowly panning from behind Kratos and his son Atreus to reveal the scale of the Norse world and hints at some of the creatures the duo will encounter throughout the game such as a dragon flying overhead and a small glimpse of the World Serpent before revealing its own title card.

Super Metroid

Super Metroid is considered one of the greatest games of all time. While it doesn’t tell the strongest story, the way the world teaches you as you explore the desolate planet Zebes helped create an entire genre of games that are still doing what this game did way back in 1994 creating extraordinary new worlds for players. Super Metroid teaches the player through exploration how to play the game. Areas and items are only accessible once you find certain items and abilities. Thus, the player learns how to navigate and gets better at the game as they progress, seeing obstacles they can overcome or tackle in new ways when they find them such as “I can reach that higher ledge now that I have the high jump.” This is all taught through experimentation and exploration with no tutorials telling the player that they should use these new powers in specific ways or places.

That is perfectly reflected in Predator Badlands. The film takes place on the “Death Planet,” which much like Super Metroid, everything there is trying to kill Dek and Thia. As the movie progress, every encounter with hostile flora and fauna with the exploration of the planet teaches Dek how to improve and make it easier to survive and reach his goal. Building up to the climax of the story, Dek cultivates the knowledge to return to certain areas to use the environment and the obstacles he has overcome to his advantage. Much like the player learning how to use the world of Zebes to their advantage such as finding as many missiles as possible before the first boss encounter, Dek does the same to achieve his own goal in the film.

Monster Hunter

Monster Hunter is by far one of the easiest things you can see that Predator Badlands takes inspiration from as there are multiple encounters with massive creatures that Dek must take down. While big game hunting has always been a constant throughout the Predator franchise, especially when crossing over with Alien, there’s nothing similar to the fights here as they feel on the Monster Hunter level of encounters. The Monster Hunter franchise is known for its large scale encounters where, if you are playing alone, feel like an incredible battle between man (or in the film’s case Yautja) and beast.

Monster Hunter is all about hunting. Tracking and discovering your target, preparing for battle, and then engaging in the fight. If there was a franchise that would fit a Predator, aside from their appearance in Mortal Kombat, it would be Monster Hunter as all Predators do is hunt, and their game is far more akin to what you see in a Monster Hunter game than what you would see in Big Game Hunter and the like. The most recent entry in the series Monster Hunter Wilds has a very similar story to Predator Badlands of being in a world where the main character is tasked with taking down the biggest, most dangerous monster in the world.

Those are all just some of the video games that lent their inspirations to Predator Badlands. With video games still being a much newer medium in storytelling than film, it is a delight to see directors take ideas from a completely different medium that is still ever evolving. If you are interested in checking the movie out Predator Badlands is now in theaters. Plus, you can read our full review of the movie here.