It's Hard To Believe This Crime Series With 86% On Rotten Tomatoes Is Based On A Forgotten PlayStation 2 Game
The British crime series Gangs of London shares obvious similarities with other shows of the same genre. Not only does it bear some of the same hallmarks as Stephen Knight’s Peaky Blinders, but its lead actor, Joe Cole, originally made his name on Knight’s show. Yet the premise of Gangs of London actually has far more to do with a long-forgotten video game made for the PlayStation Portable (PSP) in 2006 than it does with any other TV show.
Series creators Gareth Evans and Matt Flannery began working on it after their production company acquired the rights to a video game franchise which included a game with the title Gangs of London. This game was itself a very minor title within the franchise. Nevertheless, Evans and Flannery clearly dug deep into the game, as their TV version shares certain unmistakable similarities with its source material. They took the idea and ran with it, though, taking Gangs of London into its third season as a critically-acclaimed, BAFTA-winning streaming behemoth.
Gangs Of London Is Based On A 2006 PSP Game, Which Was Based On A PlayStation 2 Title
The PSP Spin-Off Even Had The Same Title As The TV Show
The Gangs of London video game was a PSP spinoff from The Getaway, a PlayStation 2 game first released in 2002. Developed in London by Team Soho, The Getaway and its three sequels focused on gang warfare in the streets of Britain’s capital, with similar third-person, open-world gameplay to the legendary Grand Theft Auto series developed by Rockstar Games.
For many gamers, The Getaway was simply a British knock-off of Grand Theft Auto. This assessment meant that it didn’t survive as a franchise beyond the initial surge in the demand for games that could replicate the experience of playing Grand Theft Auto III all over again. Yet certain unique aspects of The Getaway’s Gangs of London game in particular have served as direct inspiration for Evans and Flannery’s hit show. The game depicts London’s ganglands as a multipolar, multi-ethnic underworld of gangs from various different countries, all battling for control of the same criminal enterprises.
How Gangs Of London Compares To The Video Game Series
There Are Certain Similarities But More Differences
Beyond this specific aspect of the Gangs of London game, however, the TV show and The Getaway video games don’t actually have a lot in common. The general premise of gang warfare on the streets of London remains the same, and the backstory of The Getaway’s Mark Hammond shares similarities with the primary motive of Joe Cole’s gang leader Sean Wallace. While Wallace’s father was killed by a rival gangster, it’s the murder of Hammond’s wife and the kidnapping of his son that motivate his actions.
Although their Pakistani drug lord Asif Afridi shares a first name with a British-Indian gangster in the Gangs of London video game, very little else resembling the Getaway franchise remains in the TV show.
Otherwise, the TV version of Gangs of London features characters entirely different from those we see in the video games. Although their Pakistani drug lord Asif Afridi shares a first name with a British-Indian gangster in the Gangs of London video game, very little else resembling the Getaway franchise remains in the TV show.
As Evans said, any medium other than a TV series “wouldn't do justice to the myriad of different diverse cultures and ethnicities that make up the city.” (via Sky News). The Getaway’s London setting might have been what first brought it to the attention of television producers. But that’s where the game ended, and the actual Gangs of London began.
Source: Sky News
Gangs of London
- Release Date
- April 23, 2020
- Network
- Sky Atlantic
- Directors
- Corin Hardy, Xavier Gens, Marcela Said
- Writers
- Gareth Evans, Matt Flannery, Peter Berry, Tom Butterworth, Claire Wilson, Matt Flannery, Rowan Athale, Lauren Sequeira, Carl Joos, Joe Murtagh, Danusia Samal, Meg Salter
Cast
Cornell JohnJoseph- Ian BeattieColin
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