10 TV Shows With Weird Video Game Episodes

Charlie Brooker, Black Mirror’s showrunner and the writer of this episode, is famous for his love of video games, having worked as a game reviewer earlier in his career and writing on various topics such as GamerGate and the defence of video game violence during his career as a columnist.

That knowledge comes through here, in big ways and in small.

The haunted mansion style setting features a slow build of terror, and in many ways the initial stages of protagonist Cooper’s time in the house feels like a tutorial. After this, the jump scares manage to lampshade themselves, yet still absolutely terrify you when they happen.

As for the smaller video game references, the eccentric Japanese developer Shou Saito is clearly a riff on Hideo Kojima. The BioShock ‘would you kindly’ mantra features too, as a brilliant Easter egg which fits the storyline perfectly whilst still waving a red flag for audience members in the know.

Playtest, more than any episode here, involves itself in an accurate depiction of a video game (albeit a futuristic one) rather than taking ideas and cliches in different directions to pull in established characters.