Occasionally, after watching a good superhero movie, I get a hankering to go play a game in the same vein. That happened with James Gunn’s Superman this weekend, but as I got home and dug through my catalog, I realized there really wasn’t anything I could play that captures the same spirit as the film — both in terms of tone and theme, or even gameplay stylings. Despite Superman’s status as one of the most iconic characters of all time, most of his forays into the world of gaming have been middling or disastrous. And digging even deeper, it’s astonishing how bad DC, in general, has capitalized on modern gaming over the last decade. A whole universe of worlds and characters that feel tailor-made for video games — but Superman, more than anything, should have had his definitive game long ago.
Superman has a long list of his own video games, from the notorious Superman 64 to the ambitious but flawed Superman Returns. But he’s never had something truly defining. And that’s genuinely a shame, as the idea of a Superman game, on paper, sounds like just as much of a smash hit as Marvel’s Spider-Man or Batman: Arkham Asylum.
Video games are often all about the idea of a power fantasy, putting you into the shoes of a character who can perform god-like feats when you press buttons. No one is more emblematic of that idea than Superman — one of the most powerful heroes of all time. Yes, the idea of flying around a fully-realized Metropolis battling alien monstrosities is tantalizing
It’s a bit bizarre to say, but if you want the best experience of playing as Superman, feeling his flight and power, you should play Lego Batman 2 and 3. Despite having a lot of the cutesy Lego trappings, Superman plays a vital role in both the game’s story and mechanics. It’s a great team-up story between Batman and Superman, giving you a chance to utilize an array of Superman’s powers in both puzzle setting and free-roam traversal; including flight, heat vision, ice breath, and super strength.
But that also identifies a core issue with DC’s game offerings, too much of a focus on ensemble experiences, that can’t dig into the real pathos of these characters. Among the many strengths of the latest Superman film is the fact that it focuses heavily on a single, simple subject — the fact that Superman is a good person trying to do good things. As simple as that might sound, a big part of Superman’s narrative crux is about normal people simply trying to make the world a better place, and how easy it is to lose sight of that in the ongoing horrors of the modern world.
That idea of simply being “good” is vital to Superman’s character, and that’s something a video game could explore in a unique way — through how players get to inhabit the character of Superman himself. This is something the Arkham games were exceptionally good at: exploring the dichotomy between the persona of Batman and who Bruce Wayne is. Similarly, Insomniac’s Spider-Man games often explore the “Friendly Neighborhood” part of Spider-Man, and how the idea of heroes ties into both society and local culture — while also delving into the relationship between the hero persona, Peter Parker, and Miles Morales.
These kinds of meaningful character explorations can often only happen when a game is focused on a singular hero — and that’s simply not something we’ve seen from DC since the Arkham trilogy ended in 2015. Ironically, this is almost the same problem that’s starting to plague the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a glut of too many characters and not enough meaningful development.
When you look at the last ten years of DC games, it’s dismal on any level. Injustice 2 was the heavy hitter in 2017, but since then, the only AAA games we’ve seen are Gotham Knights and Suicide Squad, both of which were admitted failures. Although it’s far from the biggest issues of those games, they both also feature ensemble casts. And that idea holds true to the flood of smaller DC games we’ve seen, from mobile titles like DC Heroes United to spinoffs like Cosmic Chaos and the aforementioned Lego games.
The same can’t be said for Marvel games, however, as we’ve seen three Spider-Man games, Guardians of the Galaxy, and both Wolverine and Blade are in development. That’s on top of ensemble games that have adapted Marvel properties in unique ways, like Marvel Rivals and Midnight Suns. But even Midnight Suns takes deliberate time to dig into the pathos and personality of who these heroes are.
The comparison only gets even worse with the cancellation of the Wonder Woman game from Shadow of Mordor developer Monolith. It’s frustrating that we continue to not get big DC games, because the blueprint is there — it’s been there for decades. Superheroes are something universal, a modern storytelling language that everyone can understand.
Marvel games have been able to embrace this language, while too many DC games feel like they’ve been chasing more mechanical trends, rather than trying to do something novel or surprising with their characters.
And if DC really wants to regain a foothold in video games, that’s a lesson Warner Bros. is going to have to learn. People don’t just show up for flashy superhero action or crunchy combat systems; they show up because they love these characters and the messages they stand for.
