It's rare to get a movie adapted from a video game, and even rarer to get a movie that's about video games. Free Guy, the latest action-comedy starring Ryan Reynolds, is both a spoof and love letter to the gaming industry. The movie follows Guy, a bank teller, who discovers he's actually an NPC in a violent multiplayer video game. As Guy discovers the truth about his world, he eventually becomes the first truly sentient NPC.
As a fun Hollywood action movie, Free Guy has more than enough fantastic and hilarious setpieces, cameos, and in-jokes to satisfy both gamers and non-gamers alike. However, it wouldn't be a movie about video games if it didn't include references to popular or classic entries in the medium. Anyone who's familiar with video game culture will get a kick out of Free Guy, which has many sly and clever references to pop culture, especially the video games it's inspired by.
5 Fortnite
Since the battle royale game became an internet sensation, it was bound that it was going to make some sort of appearance in Free Guy. Likely due to its popularity, Free Guy contains not one but two Fortnite references.
The first comes in the form of the "floss", one of Fortnite's most popular dance moves. At one point in the film, a player can be seen doing the floss dance in the game. Later in the movie, when Guy is fighting Dude, he uses a pickaxe from Fortnite to his advantage. It's not just any pickaxe he uses; specifically, it's the Rainbow Smash pickaxe.
4 Portal and Half-Life
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The Fortnite pickaxe isn't the only video game weapon Guy uses in Free Guy, however. Early on in the movie, Millie uses a portal gun to escape the Stash with Guy, a clear reference to the popular Portal games. The gun may not look much like the one found in Portal, but the quick reference is fun nonetheless. The movie's weapon not only works in a very similar way to the portal gun but it also uses the orange and blue colored portals.
In case audiences missed it, however, the gun makes a second appearance later on. In his fight with Dude, Guy uses the portal gun once again. The gravity gun, Valve's other most famous weapon, is also used in Guy's fight with Dude. The gravity gun of course appears in Half-Life 2, and just like the portal gun, it works in the movie just like it does in the game.
3 Mega Man
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Referenced in some of the promotional art for the movie, the Mega Man franchise is another game referenced in Free Guy. While Mega Man himself doesn't appear in the movie, his famous weapon, the Mega-Buster does. After leveling up past 100, Guy goes to join Millie to break into the Stash, which may very well hold the code powering the game that Millie needs.
The plan isn't quite successful, however, as Guy and Millie eventually find themselves in the Stash surrounded by enemies. The two of them have to shoot their way out in typical action movie fashion. During the shootout, Guy pulls out various weapons, one of which is the Mega-Buster.
2 Pac-Man
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Here, Free Guy goes back to the roots of gaming and pulls out a reference to arguably the most famous arcade game ever made. In Pac-Man, players play the title character navigating a maze while avoiding the various ghosts.
In Free Guy, the reference comes not from within the fictional video game Free City, but in the real world. When Keys first enters his apartment, one of the Pac-Man ghosts can be seen as a lamp. As an aspiring video game developer, it should be too much of a surprise that Keys has a few video game knick-knacks lying around his apartment.
1 Grand Theft Auto
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While Free Guy doesn't necessarily contain a specific reference to the Grand Theft Auto franchise, it pays homage to it with the concept of the game in Free Guy. In the game Free City, players customize their own avatar and explore the seemingly endless city, performing various crimes and getting into insane car chases and shootouts. As one of the nameless NPCs, Guy often gets seriously hurt or killed by many of the players.
The open-world chaos of Free City acts very similarly to the Grand Theft Auto games, specifically Grand Theft Auto Online with its online capabilities. Both games encourage players to commit various crimes around their open worlds, which will usually result in chaotic fights against law enforcement, and complete tasks for various characters. Both games also contain a plethora of NPCs, which players can harm or kill with sometimes hilarious results. So while Free Guy never explicitly references Grand Theft Auto, it's clear to anyone familiar with the games that it was used as a heavy inspiration for the movie.