In the flurry of video game adaptations we’ve seen over the last few years, several of them have been pretty stunning. There was “Fallout” and “The Last of Us” as successful tv series, alongside Mario and Sonic earning strong box office returns. We’ve also seen some unexpected turns, like Peacock’s “Twisted Metal.” But in the realm of things we didn’t see coming- Netflix adapting “Overcooked” as a reality series.
“Overcooked” is a series of games that, as the title suggests, is about cooking. The multiplayer focused game tasks you with running around a kitchen and prepping food orders before clients get upset from waiting too long. The mechanics are simple, but the positioning of things around the kitchen area and frantic nature of the gameplay push players to use teamwork and communication to get things done in a timely fashion. That’s before the kitchen splits in two from an earthquake, of course.
That’s where “Overcooked” throws an extra curveball into the mix. Instead of just managing around a disorganized kitchen, you may be working on a listing sea ship where the tilting of the vessel shifts the position of parts of your kitchen. Or you may be working on a city street with a pedestrian walkway bisecting your work area. Apparently A24 and Netflix thought this was a good enough idea to make into a reality competition show.
Behind the scenes as executive producers will be members of Ghost Town Games, the developer of the “Overcooked” game series. They’ll be partnering with A24 in what will end up being their first project of this type in the reality competition genre.
It’s still early enough in development to where we don’t have many details to share, but Netflix has previously been successful with shows like “Nailed It!” which tasks competitors to make a culinary creation to certain specifications within a very strict time period. “Overcooked” would fit well alongside that by making the challenge not so much about what to cook, but how to get around a kitchen that seems actively involved in stopping you from cooking.
We’ll report further on this project as we get more information.
