5 best games that deserve an anime series

Some games don’t end when you finish them. They stay. They crawl into your chest and whisper in a voice that sounds a little too much like yours.

And you think, this could’ve been more. This wants to be more. These games are already half-anime, half-exorcism. All they’re missing is the frame-by-frame ache. The in-between stillness. The part where someone finally says it out loud.

Why are they still not adapted? No one knows. But an otaku can hope, right?

And if you're like us, raised on pirated episodes of shonen classics, skipping birthdays for new releases, eyes glued to grainy subs instead of sunlight, well, you already know. Our idea of “fun” was different. And that’s okay. These games? They get it. And frankly, they deserve their shot.

This list isn’t exclusive. We know the damage a good anime can do (ask the Banana Fish lovers still stuck in emotional rehab). But for these titles? We’re rooting, screaming, crying, all the way to the moon and back.

So here are five. Five games that deserve to be animated. They’re overdue. Let’s talk about them.

1. Okami — the brushstroke that never dried

If Studio Ghibli had a daughter who dreamt in sumi-e and listened to old gods hum under her bed, it would look a lot like Okami. Released in 2006, before indie games made hand-painted beauty a flex, Okami dared to make gameplay an act of art. Every leap, every battle, every swirl of Amaterasu’s tail is a stroke of reverence—for folklore, for storytelling, for Japan itself.

Hideki Kamiya’s been building worlds that feel like prayers half-said. Okami’s the one that feels like a goodbye.

And now with Okami 2 on the horizon, the timing’s almost rude. Like handing someone a love letter twenty years too late.

This one should’ve been an anime already. But maybe that’s the thing about gods. They show up when they feel like it.

2. Little Nightmares — if childhood fear had an animator

There’s a version of this world where The Promised Neverland and Coraline are cousins, and Little Nightmares is the feral younger sibling that never came home for dinner.

The game is all angles and absence, light doesn’t spill here, it bleeds. You guide Six, all yellow coat and trembling resolve, through the mechanical intestines of something too monstrous to name. She doesn’t speak, and neither should the anime. Let the silence do the screaming.

Tarsier’s world doesn’t need dialogue, it needs framing. Shadows stretching too long. A child’s breath fogging glass. A hand, too large, curling round a doorframe. And just beneath the horror, something more familiar: the knowledge that you were never really safe. Not in that house. Not in that dream. Not in your own skin.

3. Yakuza — high camp, low punches, and karaoke in the rain

If Yakuza were an anime, it’d punch you in the teeth and then cry about it in a hostess bar three scenes later. It’s JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure if JoJo worked in underground real estate. It's Mob Psycho on Red Bull and repressed trauma.

But listen, this isn’t about the memes. Yakuza is operatic. It’s tragedy wrapped in heat maps and side quests. It’s an uncle you don’t talk about, but whose voicemail still lives in your phone.

And sure, we’ve seen the live-action attempts. But they couldn’t capture the chaos. The game knows it’s ridiculous—goes from solemn father-son betrayal to chicken racing in under two minutes. That’s not inconsistency. That’s confidence.

The only studio I’d trust? Maybe Trigger. Or Shaft. Or maybe a newcomer hungry enough to let Kiryu’s fists talk while the camera lingers, just a second too long, on the cigarette burning down.

4. Detention — grief rendered in grayscale


Detention mourns in your direction. Every hallway echoes with what could’ve been a memory or a scream. It’s Taiwan in the 1960s, during the White Terror. It’s Ray, the girl you think you’re saving—until you realize you’re only witnessing her unravel.

Red Candle didn’t build a horror game. They made a confession booth. One where the ghosts don’t need names because history already did that.

In anime, this would land like The Devil’s Backbone. Slow. Political. Beautifully damning. You wouldn’t binge it. You’d sit with it. Uncomfortable. Eyes wide open. It would make Western audiences Google terms they’d never heard. “White Terror.” “Censorship.” “Martial Law.” And suddenly, the silence in the school halls would be louder than any scream.

5. The Bridge Curse: Road to Salvation — campus legend, reawakened


You know the story. Haunted university. Midnight dare. Lights go out. Someone screams.

But The Bridge Curse makes it feel like it could’ve happened two dorms over. It’s local legend turned full-on panic. Every hallway hums. Every corner’s wrong. Every door feels like it’s closing behind you, even when it’s open.

There’s something sick about how well it works. The ghosts don’t just scare you. They trap you. You try to solve puzzles while your brain is screaming at you to leave. And it’s never just one scare. It’s a chain of them. Long. Mean. Clever.

The sequel adds layers. Multiple characters. Deeper lore. But the first one? That’s the one that burrowed under the bed.

As an anime, this one shouldn’t be glossy. It should stutter. Found footage. Static. Voices that don’t sync. Keep the tension. Keep the doors creaking a beat too long. It’s not subtle. But not every story has to be. Some just want to scare you, then sit next to you while your heart slows down.