---
title: "Nikola Tesla in popular culture"
chunk: 5/5
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla_in_popular_culture"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:04:56.506096+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

=== Appearances ===
In the Command & Conquer Red Alert series of video games, Nikola Tesla is a scientist working for the USSR, and "Tesla" is the name of the technology the Soviets use to generate power and for their lightning-based weapons. Perhaps the most widely known example is the Tesla Coil defense structure, capable of sending short electric arcs towards oncoming units, also in their arsenal are Tesla troopers, who carry portable tesla coil-based weaponry and tesla tanks, which have a large glowing blue sphere that ejects great bolts of electricity (the Red Alert 2 version is a small tracked vehicle with a pair of forward-facing, miniature Tesla coils mounted on a turret).
Nikola Tesla is also one of the characters in the game Martian Dreams, by Origin, which is part of the Worlds of Ultima series.
In Frostpunk, an alternate history Nikola Tesla is the founder and leader of Tesla City, a possible location to discover in-game. It appears that Tesla became an authoritarian dictator of his city, exiling many unfit individuals and attempting to shield his city from a perpetual winter using electricity, which ends up killing everyone inside Tesla City. Later, a group of exiles finds and kills him, before the player's scouts bury his body.
Tesla features in The Order: 1886, and aids the main character in the game set in an alternate history 1886.
Tesla is one of the main characters in the game Dark Void, where he is kept in an alternate universe, like a 'skin' between universes, to which one can travel through the Bermuda Triangle. He uses his great intelligence to create a huge spaceship called the Ark, kept in another, tropical Earth-like universe called the Void. The Ark can be used by others stranded in the alternate universe to defeat the post-singularity robotic AI that manifests itself as an army of anthropomorphic robots. After defeating the robotic menace, Tesla and the other protagonists return to the 'skin' universe, where Tesla stays to keep his youth and his inventions.
In the Rockstar Games 2018 title Red Dead Redemption 2, Tesla is paid homage to with a character called “Marko Dragic”. In the game, the player meets Dragic in the town of Saint Denis where he is convincing investors to invest in his work on electromagnetic waves, showing off a remotely controlled boat. A later mission entails the player helping Dragic set up a series of lightning rods, assisting Dragic in the activation of an automaton, and a return to the laboratory uncovers a deceased Marko Dragic, and awarding the player with the “Artificial Intelligence” achievement or trophy. Exploration into the mountain region will allow the player to find the automaton sitting on the edge of a mountain, regretting its transgressions.
Tesla is the protagonist of Tesla vs Lovecraft and fights monsters summoned by Lovecraft.
Tesla is an ally of the Assassin's order in the Assassin's Creed series.
In Fate/Grand Order, Tesla appears in the London Singularity and briefly in E Pluribus Unum Singularity as an Archer-class Servant. His Noble Phantasm, System Keraunos, is a powerful electromagnetic attack that deals extra damage against servants with Earth or Sky Attribute.
Zen Studios developed a virtual pinball table about Tesla's work and experiments, which became one of the first four tables in its first pinball game, Zen Pinball, released in 2009.  It went on to appear in the game's subsequent ports and is available as add-on content for the game's sequels.  Nikolai Tesla himself, portrayed by a voice actor, is the table's unseen announcer.
Tesla appears in the 2019 adventure horror video game Close to the Sun, voice acted by Jannik Archer. Set in an alternate reality in 1897, he has created a company called Wardenclyffe, and has pulled ahead in a technology war against American inventor Thomas Edison.
In the 2020 game Iron Harvest, the mechs, or automachines as they are called, are inventions of Tesla, which he had created to improve Human quality of life, but instead they were used by the various world powers in the Great War. Dismayed that his inventions were used for war, he shut himself, and his personal Factory, away from the nations of the world. Tesla, and his Factory, play a major role throughout the game's campaign story.

=== Allusions ===
The 2014 adventure game Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure deals with many of Tesla's inventions such as the Spirit Radio, Tesla's Egg, the Death Ray, and a recreation of the Wardenclyffe Tower. It also includes an organization called the "Tesla Legacy Society" dedicated to solving the problems of humanity through the works and inspiration of Tesla.

== Banknotes and coins ==
Nikola Tesla is portrayed on some Croatian euro coins (10, 20 and 50 cents coins).
Nikola Tesla is portrayed on the 100 Serbian dinar banknote.

== Theme Parks ==
The 2024 roller coaster Voltron Nevera is inspired by the life and work of Nikola Tesla and features an animatronic of him during the queue line.

== See also ==
Category:Cultural depictions of scientists

== References ==

== External links ==
"To Mars with Tesla; or, the Mystery of Hidden Worlds, a Science Fiction Tale from 1901, Tesla and the Exploration of Cosmos". Tesla Society. 1901.