Rick and Morty's Odd Relationship with Video Games Explained

gamerant.com:

Rick and Morty is a show that has become one of the most popular cartoons of recent memory. First airing in 2013, the show has developed a significant fanbase and global appeal, and has predictably evolved and branched out to other forms of media.

One of the most obvious forms of media that Rick and Morty has lent itself to is video games. That being said, the relationship between the franchise and video games has been a fairly inconsistent one, spanning across platforms and genres without a clear overall structure.

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The first fairly large-scale officially licensed title to come under the Rick and Morty name was that of the 2016 mobile game Pocket Mortys. The game is a typically tongue-in-cheek parody of the Pokemon franchise, in which the player explores a top-down open-world as deranged scientist Rick Sanchez, capturing different variations of his grandson Morty to train and fight other Mortys.

Like Pokemon, the combat is turn-based, with over 200 types of Morty to catch and fight with. Considering that the game's plot concerns itself with exploring dimensions to discover new Morty variants, it is tied into the overall themes of the show in quite a clever and engaging way.

Definitely the most high-profile Rick and Morty game to date came with Virtual Rick-ality, which released in 2017. As the name suggests, the game was made for VR headsets, being an interactive experience set within the Sanchez household showcasing many references to the numerous plot lines and gags of the show itself.

The game was published by Adult Swim, and was received well by fans at the time of release, which prompted the company to eventually release a collector's edition of Virtual Rick-ality.