Breaking Bad creator wanted a game adaptation in the style of GTA

GTA and Breaking Bad would be a match made in heaven

Breaking Bad is widely regarded as one of the best TV series of all time, and frankly, its subject matter would make for a great game. The show’s creator Vince Gilligan thought so too, because he at one point pitched a GTA-like adaptation of the iconic series. Originally reported by ComicBook, Gilligan expressed the interest he had in turning Breaking Bad into a game on a recent episode of his podcast “Inside The Gilliverse,” where he was accompanied by Eric Broadbent and Peter Gould.

Gilligan said that he’s “not much of a video game player,” but that he wanted to reach out to the studio that owns Grand Theft Auto and see if they could make “like a module” inspired by his series. Even for someone who doesn’t know games all that well, he might be onto something with a Breaking Bad x GTA DLC.

“There have been quite a few attempts at video games,” Gilligan continued. “Some of them kinda sort of made it to market. We tried to do a VR experience with the Sony PlayStation VR headset. We did a mobile game that lasted for a little while.” He’s referring to a narrative base-builder game that was released back in 2020 called Breaking Bad: Criminal Elements, but it didn’t last longer than a year.

Gilligan also shared the sentiment that the team behind Breaking Bad didn’t want to create a bad game that only drew players because of its association with the show, specifically referencing the colossal failure of the 1982 E.T. game for the Atari as something they wanted to avoid replicating.

I honestly find it impressive that conversations are still swirling about adapting Breaking Bad into a game — it speaks to the legacy the show has built nearly a decade after it went off the air.