The Operator Proves War of the Worlds (2025) Would’ve Been Far Better as a Video Game
War of the Worlds (2025) and The Operator (2024) both tell most of their stories through a single computer screen, yet they reached different audiences and critics. War of the Worlds is a 2025 screenlife film directed by Rich Lee and starring Ice Cube as Will Radford, while The Operator is a 2024 point-and-click adventure for Windows PC. Below is a quick look at how the two projects compare in format, pacing, and reception.
- Compare screenlife storytelling in the 2025 film and the 2024 game
- Explain how interactivity changes pacing and player/viewer control
- Show Metacritic scores and note differences in critical response
How both works use the screen-as-stage
Both War of the Worlds and The Operator present narrative and context almost entirely through on-screen interfaces. In fact, War of the Worlds uses the screenlife technique, centering its story on the monitor of protagonist Will Radford. The film runs for about an hour-and-a-half and shifts tone between dread and comedy, which affects its pacing.
By contrast, The Operator is a Windows PC point-and-click adventure released in 2024 that lets players navigate cases via simulated desktop interfaces. The game sequences include investigations into murder, missing-person cases, and a bomb threat before moving into a larger conspiracy plot.
Interactivity and pacing
The Operator gives players direct control over tempo: they can spend more time on investigation, follow optional leads, and generally explore at their own speed. Consequently, the game’s structure allocates more time to buildup. Conversely, the film’s shorter runtime requires many story beats to occur in rapid succession, which reduces on-screen buildup.
In The Operator, players perform tasks such as reviewing documents and guiding characters through environments; the game’s ending includes a sequence where the player guides a character through a government building, which parallels the film’s ending in structure.
Reception and measurable differences
Critics and audiences reacted differently to each work. On Metacritic, The Operator currently holds a 78, while War of the Worlds holds a 6. Thus, although both projects experiment with similar presentation techniques, their critical receptions diverged significantly.
