Superhero Games

Before we begin, just know that I am not a diehard superhero fan. I enjoy the content that comes out of the superhero genre occasionally, but I do not have any major knowledge about these superheroes.

Superheroes always have interesting storylines attached to them, but they have had one fatal weakness until recently, and that is their representation in videogames. If it wasn’t for the Batman Arkham series that began over ten years ago, the best games Batman would have to his name would be in the LEGO universe. The Spider-Man games suffered the same fate for a while until 2018 when the new Spider-Man game came out. Finally we had another videogame that could be considered good by a wide audience. There is one big superhero that hasn’t yet had a chance to shine and that is none other than Superman. That guy is in serious need of a decent videogame. That’s how low the bar is for him right now. It will be considered a success if people play it for longer than a few hours before never touching it again.

Now the ideal game for Superman would be one that fully incorporates what it would be like to be Superman. After all, that is what made the Arkham series and the latest Spider-Man game so successful. The question is how do you go about doing that for Superman. In my opinion, it should probably be set up in a sandbox style where you can do missions in the overworld if you choose to do so, but the main plot centered around you traveling throughout the city for a big story for the Daily Planet. That way the game is flexible and also has a concrete goal. The real problem is after that. The sandbox setup is the easy part compared to trying to incorporate Superman’s combat style. The thing about other heroes is that they tend to be more acrobatic in their fighting styles. Superman just kinds of wins by showing up, so what should be done about this?

Well, there are a couple of things. First Superman should probably also be saving people and so some of his powers could be used for different situations throughout the city depending on the emergency. Some of them might not be able to factor into combat so well. However, considering the amount of techniques Superman has in his arsenal, it is kind of a shame to take them out of combat so maybe put that on hold for now. The two big things to work on would be making flight fun and controlling his superspeed. If you can keeping flying from place to place as fun as Batman gliding from rooftops or Spider-Man’s web-swinging, then you’ll have a heck of a game right there. These things are important for both travel and potentially combat so they have to be given special consideration. We can’t just be going through rings as we fly. That’s just dumb. To be honest, aside from some cool races I really don’t know how you can make this interesting to play. I’m honestly stumped. I want it to happen though, because I feel like it needs to happen.

Look, there are plenty of other things to take a look at for superhero games in the future but these are just some things to keep in mind. This will not happen anytime soon. There are games that have done these things before, but it is harder to do with certain heroes without bringing up questions of morality. It is a tough problem to tackle, but I just want to think that maybe one day we can get some good videogames about some of the other superheroes. Well, maybe it might just remain a dream. We’ll see what the future holds in store. Also sorry about the delay, I lost half the document earlier when editing so it took a bit longer. Thanks, internet.