Can’t Get Enough ‘Buffy’? Check Out These Other Projects Before the Audio Drama
In every generation, there is a chosen one… who inspires hours upon hours of entertainment. Twenty years after the series finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Buffyverse is still expanding, with the franchise’s first-ever audio drama on the way.
The upcoming Audible production Slayers: A Buffyverse Story reunites Buffy stars James Marsters, Charisma Carpenter, Anthony Stewart Head, Emma Caulfield, Amber Benson, Danny Strong, James Charles Leary, and Juliet Landau for “a fresh story and a new world, filled with horror, heart, humor, and surprises at every turn,” as Audible said in a press release.
Written by Benson and Christopher Golden — more on him later — Slayers follows vampire Spike (Marsters) into a parallel reality where Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Buffy Summers never existed and Cordelia (Carpenter) is the one and only Slayer. And Cordelia needs Spike’s help with a big problem named Drusilla (Landau)…
That audio drama premieres October 12, and it’s just the latest in a massive list of Buffy continuations. Just look at the long list of comics, novels, and games listed below. And, of course, there was a little show called…
Angel
Premiering on The WB alongside Buffy’s fourth season — and continuing on the channel after Buffy moved to UPN — Angel, a spinoff Joss Whedon co-created with David Greenwalt, aired 110 episodes across five seasons.
David Boreanaz reprised his role as the title character, a vampire cursed with a soul (and a love for Buffy), but the action transferred to Los Angeles, where Angel and his allies helped locals fend off supernatural threats. Those cronies include other Buffy characters, such as Spike, Cordelia, Sunnydale High alum Harmony (Mercedes McNab), and Watcher’s Council member Wesley (Alexis Denisof).
“Angel was meant to be a darker, more adult show than Buffy,” Greenwalt told Paley Matters in 2017. “Buffy was a lighter, brighter, adolescent metaphor. … We conceived Raymond Chandler, noir, we conceived [Angel] that way.”
The comics
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Comic books based on Buffy the Vampire Slayer date back to 1998, when Dark Horse Comics launched the series that would ultimately become known as Buffy the Vampire Slayer Classic, comprised of more than five dozen issues.
Then, between 2007 and 2018, Dark Horse continued the main storyline with Buffy the Vampire Season Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, and Twelve, written by many of the scribes from the TV show.
In 2018, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers published Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a middle-grade graphic novel series with a younger version of the Slayer.
Boom! Studios took over the Buffy license in 2018 and released the alternate-universe comic book series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which came out between 2019 and 2022, and the series The Vampire Slayer, which started in 2022 and ended this year. And those are just some of the many comic book series, one-shots, and shorts bearing the Buffy name!
The novels
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Clear out some space on your bookshelves and make sure your library card is in good standing: The Buffyverse Wiki lists over 100 Buffy novels, novelizations, and tie-in books. Simon & Schuster released 45 one-off Buffy novels, for example, from 1997’s Halloween Rain to 2007’s Dark Congress. Plus, that publishing house and Scholastic also put out more than a dozen novelizations of episodes from the TV show.
Then there are Buffy book series to read. Golden (of Slayers fame) teamed up with Nancy Holder on The Gatekeeper Trilogy, which has Buffy & Co. battling supernatural forces in Boston. Golden’s The Lost Slayer series imagines an alternate future where vampires rule the earth. Yvonne Navarro’s Wicked Willow riffs on the TV show’s “Dark Willow” storyline and the titular witch’s quest for vengeance. The Tales of the Slayers anthologies tell of Buffy’s predecessors. And the Stake Your Destiny boasts interactive storylines from Sunnydale High.
More recently, author Kiersten White opened up the Buffy world with the Slayer series, which centers on twin sisters who grew up at the Watchers Academy, one of whom is destined to become the Slayer. And in Kendare Blake’s In Every Generation series — the third and final installment of which is due for release next year — Willow’s daughter follows in Buffy’s footsteps to protect a rebuilt Sunnydale.
The video games
The Chosen One came to gaming devices and consoles throughout the 2000s with several Buffy video game adaptations, some of which featured the talent of cast members of the TV show. (Voice actor Giselle Loren subbed in for Gellar, however.)
In 2000’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer for Game Boy Color, Buffy takes on vampires and demons all over Sunnydale, from her university campus to the Hellmouth itself. In the 2002 Xbox game Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the Scooby Gang try to stop a plot to resurrect the Master.
2003’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Wrath of the Darkhul King for Game Boy Advance had Buffy facing down fearsome foes like Adam and the Gentlemen. That same year’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Chaos Bleeds (for GameCube, Playstation 2, and Xbox) had the character and her friends trying to prevent the warlock Ethan Rayne and the First Evil from creating a dimensional bleed.
The 2004 mobile game Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Quest for Oz follows Buffy as she rescues Oz from Drusilla’s clutches. And the 2009 Nintendo DS game Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Sacrifice, set after the events of the TV series, has Buffy joining Spike and Angel to defeat the First Evil.
The 2002 Xbox game appears to be the best-reviewed of the bunch, with GameSpot calling it a “terrific action-game interpretation” that “seamlessly delivers both fighting-game-style combat and puzzle solving while telling a great story using in-game cinemas.”
The tabletop games
If you prefer your games analog, several Buffy tabletop games have been released so far this millennium. Two roll-and-move games were released in 2000: Hasbro and Milton-Bradleys’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Game and Susan Prescot Games’ more rudimentary Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Board Game. And the following year, Score Entertainment released a collectible card game named after the TV series.
And in this current golden age for board gaming, Buffy hasn’t been left behind. Jasco Games published the cooperative Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Board Game in 2016 and the Friends and Frenemies expansion in 2019. Fans have gotten Buffy-themed installments in the Legendary series, a semi-cooperative deck-building game, and the Unmatched series, an asymmetrical miniature fighting game. With all these titles, “Unmatched” would also be a good descriptor for the Buffyverse itself…
