The Oregon Trail, the game about breaking your arm and dying of dysentery, is being made into an 'action-comedy' movie with musical numbers

The Oregon Trail is an educational videogame that's become notorious for the brutal cruelty it inflicts on players as they attempt to make their way on a simulated trip to the west coast of the US in the mid-1800s. If you've ever died of dysentery, you've played The Oregon Trail—and now, for some reason, it's being made into a live action movie.

First things first: There are actually numerous Oregon Trail videogames, going all the way back to the mid 1970s. It's a disparate lot, they do have one thing in common: Bad news.

Bad news

The Oregon Trail (1975) screenshot — (Image credit: Gameloft S.A.)

More bad news

The Oregon Trail (1991) screenshot — (Image credit: MECC)

Even more bad news

The Oregon Trail Deluxe — (Image credit: MECC)

Guess what? The news, it is not good

The Oregon Trail screenshot - Here lies andy, peperony and chease — (Image credit: MECC)

And so it goes.

Having established that The Oregon Trail is not an especially upbeat take on pioneer life, it sounds like the movie won't necessarily hew too closely to that aspect of the source material. While everything is still in the very early stages, The Hollywood Reporter says the film will be an "action-comedy" with a bit of a musical bent "in the vein of Barbie." The screenplay is currently set to be written by The Lucas Brothers and Max Reisman, while Will Speck and Josh Gordon are on board to direct and produce.

This project is not to be confused with Organ Trail, which is in fact not based on the zombie game that's based on The Oregon Trail, but instead emerged from a simple typo.

YouTube

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Nor is there any connection to this Oregon Trail, which looks very true to the source material but is not a real film at all, just a bit of YouTube fun, although I would absolutely pay to see this.

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To be honest, I'm unsure as to how this film—which, for the record, doesn't have any kind of release target at this point—will be based on The Oregon Trail videogame(s) specifically, rather than the infamous journey to the west itself, which has already been the subject of numerous film and television treatments. I suppose as long as someone dies of dysentery (or if they can at least work in a few fart jokes), you can say the job is done.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.