Isles of the Embberdark is out, so here's how every book in Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere could act as a game

Two weeks ago, the productive fantasy author Brandon Sanderson announced that his new book, Isles of the Embberdark, would arrive months before the schedule. That news gave me the motivation to end my first reading of Cosmere and pressed through the end of wind and truth and the sunlit man.

This was exciting for some reasons. First, it's a reading project I've had since the beginning of 2024, and it's nice to be done. For two, this means that I can finally dive deep into Cosmere's Wiki, coppermind. This is something I have longed to do for a while, which when I met a tight piece of Lore in one of the books that I struggle to remember, but have stayed away from fear of spoilers. And most importantly, I can finally write this list.

When you read Sanderson's work, it is impossible not to think about how his books would translate into video games. Like game designers, he builds worlds that are governed by interesting rules. He is known for his magical laws, which means that his magical system is surprising but still predictable, after established logic. Just like mechanics in a video game.

This paragraph will contain less spoilers for premise, world and magical systems in every book being discussed.

Elantris

In Elantris, a city falls occupied by divine, magical creatures. The power that raised the inhabitants of the titular city of God goes bad and condemns elantrian to a zombie-like existence. They can't die, but they can't heal either, so they constantly feel any pain they experience, as small, for the rest of their lives. Until, that is, they are crazy.

When the book begins, Raoden, a prince who lives in the nearby city of Kae, wakes up to discover that he has undergone the same disease. He has been convicted of living the rest of his life in Elantri's walls.

From here, a game version can take two very different paths. In her heart, Elantris is a mystery story. When the Raoden discovers more about the city, he will be closer and closer to discover the secret of Elantrian's case. Sanderson weaves the action and world -building together, so that when history develops, so does the world. Elantris can work well as a detective game that encourages players to bring together the mystery to themselves.

The big problem with that? Sanderson's fans, the foremost audience for an adaptation like this, have already read the book. They know where the story goes so that the mystery, as written, would not work for them. Of course, a developer was able to extend the mystery in addition to the book's reach, a la indoor-click adjustments of Discworld from the 90s.

Mistborn: Era 1

In the past I have written about how Mistborn would make an amazingly engrossing sim, and I stand by it. The first Mistborn book is particularly focused on a superpowering team of “allomancers” that pulls off an impossible heist. This crew gets its powers by consuming metals which, when ignited within their bodies, provide special abilities. They intend to use these powers to rob Lord Ruler, an extremely powerful (and evil) emperor who has ruled for 1000 years.

To do that, the protagonist Kelsier, a team of collaborators, each one talented with abilities from a metal. The foppic breeze can burn brass to calm emotions. The soldier Ham can use tin to increase his endurance and physical strength. The cranky clubs take copper to produce allomantic clouds and prevent someone else from discovering his or the crew, presence. As a Mistborn, Kelsier is one of the rare allomancers that can use each metal, squeeze himself through the air with the help of steel, pull metallic objects to themselves with iron and many more.

These forces provide a perfect set of skills for an engrossing sim, and the first book especially follows wine, a young Mistborn, when she goes undercover as a noblewoman at Garish Balls thrown by the elite. It screams dishonest to me.

Warbreaker

Warbreaker has a very interesting magical system that can work surprisingly well in video game form. In this world, magic is stored in breath (like your literal breath, but it is also your soul) and powerful people have many breaths. Living gods in this world is given the life force of the members of the population as a form of religious victim. The bigger the breath, the greater your perception of the world around you. The colors are lighter, sounds are higher, structures are more detailed. But breaths cannot be stolen, they must be given freely.

But you can also breathe into lifeless objects and let them make your bid. It can act as Mario Odyssey's possession system, or as Pokémon.

Stormlight archive

The Stormlight archive has its foundation in video games, as the series' iconic Shardblades was inspired by Sanderson who saw a massive sword in a Musou game and asked himself why someone would need a sword so big. Despite these origins, a dynasty Warriors style 1-VS-12 would not be the right genre suitable for Stormlight.

No, this is Sanderson's huge fantasy epos – seriously, it is planned to be ten volumes long when it is clear and none of the five posts that have been released so far have been under 1000 pages – and it deserves a huge game. An Open World Action RPG would be the right fit. Let me hang out in the massive library in Kharbranth, explore the chasms on the crushed plains and crack a cold (horreat theater white, natch) on the beach of the clean lake.

Everything I refer to is introduced in the first book, The Way of Kings, but a video game would have even more to work on if it was put under a later book, such as Oathbringer.

It would have to focus on resource management as well, as both Roshar's magic and technology are driven by the titular energy, caught under storms in areas. A calendar system that dictated where the storm was at Roshar would always be a must.

Mistborn: Era 2

Everything you liked with Mistborn, now with a Sherlock Holmes and Western-inspired twist. Mistborn ERA 2's introduction of weapons would enable a transition from the cloak and Dolk IMSIM game of dishonest in favor of the expressive power-based explosion of Bioshock.

Emerald Lake

Tress of the Emerald Sea is one of Sanderson's video game -playing premises. In the lighter imagination inspired by Princess Bride, a young woman from an isolated island tries to save the guy she loves when he is kidnapped by an evil witch. The twist? The island is not surrounded by seawater, but by a sea of ​​spores set in motion through oxidation.

When they get wet, they have curious effects. The Emerald spores around Tress' Island grow into huge bacon vines when they are wet, but others in other seas have different reactions. An open world game that throws players like pirates crossing the different seas, collects new spores and handling pirates can be ace.

Yumi and The Nightmare Painter

Half of the game is Mario Paint but your teacher is a moody teenage boy. The other half is the rock -stacking mini game from the Ghost of Tsushima.

The sunlit man

Sunlit man would make a fantastic survival game. In the fourth secret project book, Sanderson introduces a world shop named Nomad who is stranded on Canticle, a small planet with an incredibly powerful sun that destroys everything in its way. Plants grow incredibly fast, with farmers planting crops and harvests them within a few hours. The people who occupy this planet are necessarily travelers and live in cities composed of vessels that can lock themselves apart as needed.

These vessels are run by ORbs called Sunhearts, run by the dead souls transmitted by the sun. So when older members of this society are ready, they are voluntary to remain so that their comrades can gather their energy during their next trip around the sun.

Although the book's story involves Nomad to find a way to disturb this system, a cool survival game can be set in the middle of it when the people in Canticle try to survive and strike back against the tyrannical Cinder King while finding solar patches, repairs vehicles and keeps their city constantly moving around the plan.