Understanding Italicization of Video Game Titles Across Different Styles

Ask five writers whether you should italicize a video game title, and you’ll probably get five different answers. Some will say yes without hesitation. Others will insist on quotation marks. A few will just shrug and say, “I don’t know, I just wing it.”

Here’s the truth: they’re not all wrong. The italicization of video game titles genuinely depends on which style guide you’re following, and that’s exactly why this topic causes so much confusion. Academic writers, journalists, bloggers, and game reviewers all follow different rulebooks, and those rulebooks don’t agree with each other.

This guide breaks down exactly when to italicize video game titles, when to use quotation marks instead, and why the “correct” answer changes depending on your context. By the end, you’ll have a clear, practical framework you can actually use, whether you’re writing an academic essay or a casual blog review.

Should Video Game Titles Be Italicized?

The short answer: it depends on your style guide, but in most academic and formal writing contexts, yes.

Three of the four major style guides covered in this article, MLA Style, Chicago Manual of Style, and the current edition of APA Style, all treat video game titles the same way they treat books, films, and albums. They italicize them because they consider a video game a standalone creative work, complete in itself rather than a small piece of something larger.

The outlier is AP Style, used heavily in journalism and news writing, which skips italics altogether and wraps video game titles in quotation marks instead.

Here’s a quick snapshot before we dig into the details:

Style Guide	Video Game Title Format
MLA Style	Italics
APA Style (7th edition)	Italics
Chicago Manual of Style	Italics
AP Style	Quotation marks

So if you’ve read conflicting advice online, you’re not imagining things. Different publication guidelines genuinely disagree, and that disagreement isn’t a mistake, it’s intentional.

Why Are Video Game Titles Usually Italicized?

To understand the logic, you need to understand what italics are actually signaling. In most formatting rules, italics mark a work as standalone, meaning it’s a complete piece of art or media that exists on its own, not a chapter, episode, or song that belongs to a bigger collection.

Think about how this plays out with other media:

• A novel gets italicized because it’s a complete work.
• A chapter inside that novel gets quotation marks because it’s just one part of the whole.
• An album gets italicized.
• A single song on that album gets quotation marks.

Video games fit naturally into the “complete work” category. A game like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild isn’t a fragment of something bigger, it’s a finished, self-contained release with its own title, packaging, and identity. That’s why most style guides treat standalone video games the same way they treat novels and films.

What Do Major Style Guides Recommend?

Let’s go through each major style guide one at a time. This is where things actually get specific, and where a lot of writers get tripped up by assuming one guide’s rule applies universally.

MLA Style

MLA Style is one of the most widely used citation style systems in academic writing, especially in the humanities. It treats video games exactly like it treats books and films: as standalone works deserving italics.

Under MLA rules:

• Subtitles are included as part of the italicized title (for example, Red Dead Redemption 2, not just Red Dead Redemption).
• In-text references to the game follow the same italics convention throughout the paper.

If you’re writing a research paper, thesis, or academic essay that touches on video games as a subject of study, cultural analysis, or narrative criticism, MLA’s italics rule is likely the one you’ll need to follow.

APA Style

Here’s where things get genuinely interesting, and where a lot of other articles on this topic get it wrong or leave out an important detail.

APA Style hasn’t always been consistent on this. Under older APA guidance (6th edition), reference list examples for video games typically showed the title with no italics at all, just a bracketed label like [Video game] attached to a plain, unformatted title.

That changed with the 7th edition. Current APA Style guidance now aligns much more closely with MLA and Chicago, treating video games as standalone works and applying italics to the title, both in the reference list and in the body of the paper.

“You will italicize the title of the video game, as it’s the name of a standalone, self-contained work — a work that is complete in and of itself, like a book or movie or painting.”

This shift matters because if you’re referencing an older citation guide or an outdated online example, you might end up using a rule that’s no longer current.

Chicago Manual of Style

The Chicago Manual of Style is known for being exhaustive. It has specific guidance for nearly every type of published work imaginable, and video games fall neatly into its existing framework for long-form, self-contained creative works.

This consistency across MLA, Chicago, and current APA is actually reassuring for academic writers, since it means once you learn the underlying logic, “is this a standalone work or a piece of one,” you can apply it confidently across multiple citation style systems.

AP Style

AP Style breaks from the pack entirely, and it’s worth understanding why. This used by most newspapers, wire services, and news publications, avoids italics across the board.

Instead of italics, AP style puts video game titles inside quotation marks, the same treatment it gives to:

• Albums
• Songs
• TV episodes
• Movies
• Books (with a few reference-material exceptions)

So under AP rules, you’d write it as “God of War” or “Call of Duty,” not God of War or Call of Duty. If you’re writing for a news outlet, a press release, or any publication that follows AP’s writing conventions, quotation marks are the expected format, even though that might look “wrong” to someone trained in academic writing.

Where Style Guides Actually Disagree (and Why)

At this point, the pattern should be clear: it’s not that one style guide is right and the others are wrong. Each one was built for a different kind of writing, with different assumptions about formatting.

• Academic writing (MLA, APA, Chicago) leans toward italics because these guides evolved primarily around print publishing conventions for scholarly work, where italics have long marked standalone titles.
• Journalism (AP) leans toward quotation marks partly for historical typesetting reasons, and partly because news writing prioritizes speed and simplicity over the more elaborate formatting rules of academic publishing.
• Blogs and gaming websites often don’t follow any single guide strictly. Many gaming outlets invent their own house style, blending italics, quotation marks, or no special formatting at all, which is a huge part of why readers see so much inconsistency across the internet.

None of this means the rules are arbitrary. It means the “correct” choice depends entirely on where your writing is going to live: a college paper, a newsroom, or a personal blog.

Video Game Titles vs. Game Series vs. Franchises

This is one of the most common mixups in video game title formatting, and it trips up even experienced writers.

Here’s how that plays out:

Reference Type	Example	Needs Italics/Quotes?
Specific game title	The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	Yes
Franchise name	The Witcher franchise	No
Game series (general)	The Zelda series	No
Specific entry in series	The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom	Yes

A common mistake: writers italicize casual references like “I love Mario games” or “the Resident Evil franchise is huge.” Neither needs italics, because you’re not naming a specific title, you’re referring to a broader category. This distinction between game series vs franchise naming and individual game vs game series referencing is small, but it’s exactly the kind of detail that separates careful, professional writing from sloppy formatting.

Should DLCs, Expansions, and In-Game Missions Be Italicized?

This is genuinely underexplained across most guides on the topic, so it deserves real attention here.

DLC (downloadable content), expansion packs, and individual in-game missions or game chapters don’t all follow the same rule. The key question to ask is: is this a standalone release, or is it a smaller piece of a larger work?

Here’s a practical breakdown:

• Smaller DLC add-ons that don’t carry their own major branding function more like a song title or book chapter. These typically fit better in quotation marks rather than italics, since they’re a piece of the larger game rather than a complete work of their own.
• In-game missions and chapters almost always take quotation marks, following the same logic as chapters within a novel. A mission called “The Killing Fields” inside a larger game would use quotes, not italics, because it’s a fragment of the full experience, not the whole thing.

Here’s a quick reference for this specific scenario:

Content Type	Example	Recommended Format
Base game	Red Dead Redemption 2	Italics
Major expansion	Undead Nightmare	Italics
Minor DLC pack	“Outlaws to the End”	Quotation marks
In-game mission	“A Fisher of Fish”	Quotation marks

If you’re unsure which category something falls into, ask yourself whether it was marketed and sold as its own product with a distinct identity, or whether it’s simply additional content bolted onto the base game. That distinction usually settles the question.

How to Write Video Game Titles in Essays, Blogs, and Articles

Different writing contexts call for different approaches, and matching your format to your audience matters more than chasing some universal “correct” answer.

For academic essays and research papers: Stick to whichever citation style your institution or publication requires, usually MLA, APA, or Chicago. Italics will almost always be the expected format here.

For news articles: Follow AP style and use quotation marks. This is especially important if you’re writing for an outlet with an established house style, since deviating from it can look like an error even when it technically follows another valid guide.

For blog posts and reviews: You have more freedom here, since most blog posts aren’t bound by a formal citation style. That said, consistency matters more than which option you pick. Choose either italics or quotation marks and use it consistently across your entire site. Random switching between formats mid-article looks unpolished and can hurt readability.

A useful mental shortcut: italics tend to read as more editorial and polished, closer to how a magazine or academic publication would present a title. Quotation marks feel more casual and journalistic. Pick whichever tone matches your brand voice, then stay consistent.

Video Game Titles Compared with Books, Movies, TV Shows, and Board Games

It helps to see how video games line up against other types of creative work titles, since the same underlying logic (standalone work versus a piece of a larger work) applies across media.

Media Type	Formatting	Standalone or Part of Larger Work
Books	Italics	Standalone
Movies	Italics	Standalone
TV series (the whole show)	Italics	Standalone
TV episode (a single episode)	Quotation marks	Part of a series
Albums	Italics	Standalone
Songs	Quotation marks	Part of an album
Video games	Italics (or quotes under AP)	Standalone
Board games	Inconsistent across guides	Generally treated as standalone, though rarely addressed directly

The board game titles row is worth calling out specifically, since most major style guides simply don’t address board games directly the way they do books and video game titles, movies and video game titles, or TV shows. In practice, most writers extend the same standalone-work logic used for video games to board games, treating something like Settlers of Catan or Ticket to Ride with italics. But because it’s not explicitly codified in most official guides, this remains more of a widely accepted convention than a hard rule.

Common Formatting Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Even careful writers slip up here. These are the mistakes worth watching for:

• Italicizing a franchise name instead of a specific title. “The Final Fantasy series has sold millions” doesn’t need italics, but “Final Fantasy VII Remake redefined the franchise” does.
• Mixing formatting styles within one piece. Starting an article in MLA-style italics and drifting into AP-style quotation marks halfway through is one of the most common common formatting mistakes writers make, especially in longer pieces.
• Treating all DLC the same way. Not every add-on deserves the same formatting as the base game, major expansions and minor content packs aren’t formatted identically.
• Assuming AP rules apply everywhere. Writers with a journalism background sometimes default to quotation marks even in academic contexts where italics are expected, simply out of habit.
• Forgetting subtitles are part of the title. The Last of Us Part II should be fully italicized, subtitle included, not just the base name.

Consistency is really the whole game here. Consistent formatting rules across a single piece of writing matter more than obsessing over which specific style guide is “most correct.”

Examples of Correctly Formatted Video Game Titles

Seeing side-by-side examples makes the differences click faster than any explanation alone.

MLA / Chicago / APA (italics):

• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
• God of War Ragnarök
• Elden Ring
• Hades

AP Style (quotation marks):

• “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild”
• “God of War Ragnarök”
• “Elden Ring”
• “Hades”

Both versions are correctly formatted video game titles, just for different audiences and publication contexts. Neither one is universally wrong, they’re simply built for different writing conventions.

Quick Reference Table for Video Game Title Formatting

Here’s a consolidated cheat sheet pulling together everything covered above:

Scenario	MLA	APA (7th ed.)	Chicago	AP
Full game title	Italics	Italics	Italics	Quotation marks
Game franchise name	No formatting	No formatting	No formatting	No formatting
Major expansion pack	Italics	Italics	Italics	Quotation marks
Minor DLC	Quotation marks	Quotation marks	Quotation marks	Quotation marks
In-game mission/chapter	Quotation marks	Quotation marks	Quotation marks	Quotation marks

Bookmark this table. It covers the vast majority of real-world scenarios you’ll run into, whether you’re writing for a classroom, a newsroom, or your own blog.

FAQs

Should video game titles be italicized in essays?

Yes, in most academic contexts. MLA, Chicago, and current APA guidelines all treat video games as standalone works and require italics in essays and research papers.

Are game series or franchise names italicized?

No. Only the specific title of an individual release gets italicized. General references to a franchise or series, like “the Halo franchise,” don’t require special formatting.

Should DLC and expansion titles be italicized?

It depends on scale. Major, independently branded expansions typically follow the same rule as the base game, while smaller DLC packs and in-game missions are usually placed in quotation marks instead.

Do board game titles follow the same rules as video games?

Mostly, by convention, though most style guides don’t address board games explicitly. Writers generally extend the same standalone-work logic used for video games.

Which style guide should I use for a blog or non-academic article?

There’s no strict requirement. Pick either italics or quotation marks based on the tone you want, then stay consistent throughout your site or publication.

Conclusion

The italicization of video game titles isn’t a single fixed rule, it’s a decision that depends entirely on context. Academic and formal writing, guided by MLA, Chicago, and current APA standards, treats video games as standalone creative works deserving italics, the same treatment given to books, films, and albums. AP Style, rooted in journalism’s own writing conventions, opts for quotation marks instead.

The real skill isn’t memorizing every rule, it’s identifying your context first: are you writing an academic essay, a news article, or a blog post, and then applying the matching convention consistently. Get that sequence right, and correctly formatting video game titles stops being confusing and starts being second nature.