5 Reasons Mistborn Is the Best Cosmere Setting to Turn into a Video Game

Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere universe consists of dozens of novels and stories, with a huge variety of settings, characters, and magic systems. Adaptations have been somewhat slow to come, with a few tabletop adventure games the only non-novel Cosmere ventures thus far. The Mistborn movie plans have stalled. But such a rich, untapped universe, so obviously prime for adaptations, begs the question: what Cosmere world would be the best one to set a video game on?

We could debate this question for ages, but instead, let’s just look at five reasons why Mistborn would make an awesome video game:

Steel pushing/pulling traversal mechanics would rule

Mistborn are basically superheroes, and to a casual observer, they can definitely fly. In reality, they are pushing and/or pulling on metal, which is plentiful in the city of Luthadel (where most of the Mistborn books take place). While it would be a bit tricky to synthesize the reality of steel pushing and pulling into a cohesive video game mechanic, a simplified version of it could function a lot like one of the old Spiderman games. It would be easy to assign pushing/pulling to the same button by having a trigger swap between the pushing and pulling metals. Soaring across the rooftops with a mistborn fluttering behind us is a video game experience we seriously need.

There are lore reasons for your character surviving death

The number of times Vin survives what should have been lethal combat encounters demonstrates this point well. With pewter, you can get wrecked hard enough to appear dead, but crawl away and heal — meaning “dying” in game and respawning is easily explained. Burning pewter could also be used as a way to regain health, which makes way more sense than a character using a medpack and suddenly not being filled with bullets anymore.

Metal vials are interesting consumables

Consumables occupy a weird space in most games, where they are either too important or basically useless — and many RPG players are familiar with the technique of “saving this until I need it and ending the game with 50 of them”. Having a lot of the consumables you find would be a cool way to encourage exploring and make using your powers an interesting tactical choice — assuming the mechanic was well-balanced, at least. Naturally, this would be a complex system, but perhaps things like Tin or Copper could be used passively and toggled on/off, while Pewter serves as healing and Steel drains when you use your mobility.

Luthadel is a great setting for an RPG

With multiple powerful noble families and intrigue aplenty, there are lots of factions and NPCs you could interact with in a Mistborn game. Beyond that, gothic spires shrouded in mist make for a fantastic aesthetic, perfect for a dark, gritty game. It’s easy to imagine each noble family’s region being a level, with the player working their way inwards to Kredik Shaw — and the city would work great as the setting for an open world game as well.

Currency as ranged ammo is funny

Vin and Kelsier seem largely unconcerned about the spare change they fling around or use to steel push around. But in a game where you’re often saving up for a new weapon or piece of armor, it might be a tough choice if you want to risk getting into melee range or throw your last coin at some Thug. Conversely, once you get into the end game and you’re swimming in currency, it’ll feel great to liberally fling coins at enemies.

There are lots more to say about a potential Mistborn video game, from what genre it should be, to whether it should follow Vin, Kelsier, or a brand new character. Let us know what you think in the comments below!

_{The featured image for this post is a beautiful piece of fan art by Somnicide}