The history of games starringSupermanhasn’t quite been as illustrious as some of his other DC counterparts, like Batman’s highly ratedArkhamseries. In fact, some of the most impressive outings in recent games have been ones that feature theMan of Steel as a villaininstead of giving him the starring role in a game.
Now thatWarner Bros. Interactivehas gotten into a much better grove with the superhero gaming genre, thanks in no small part to the excellent work coming out of Rocksteady Studio, it’s time for Superman to take the spotlight again. Between the newly expanded limits of next-gen gaming tech and modern AAA budgets, Warner Bros. Interactive can finally make up for the unfortunate history of the Man of Steel.
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Superman 64’s Technical Limitations
Superman 64has become somewhat of a punchlineover the years, due to it holding some of the lowest review scores in the pre-shovelware era of game development. However, those terrible reviews were justified, considering that the game was plagued with technical limitations resulting in a majority of the gameplay being confined to flying through rings and the city of metropolis being left in a constant fog. This left the game to be an ugly, difficult to play mess that often required perfect timing to master the unremarkable missions that at the end of the day, just wasn’t fun.
All of this isn’t to say that Titan Interactive wasn’t working its hardest on the game, as the history ofSuperman 64’s development has been revealed over time, and the process was hampered by budget and technical restraints from start to finish. By the time the game was set to release, the development team seemingly didn’t have enough time to work out the kinks in the programming, resulting in the infamously broken state the game launched in. However, with Rocksteady Studios reinventing Superman once again as he arrives in theupcoming titleSuicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, it might be time to take another shot at redemption.
The Current State of Warner Bros. Interactive
One thing that may have doneSuperman 64in more than anything was the state of game development in 1999, when these types of tie-in titles were often produced as more of a cash grab alongside a new movie or TV show than anything else. Recently, that type of treatment for treasured IPs is no longer the status quo in the gaming industry, with much of this type of wild-west attitude being relegated to mobile and gatcha-type freemium titles. On the flip side of this,Warner Bros. Interactive’s DC game universe, whether connected or not, has been recently dedicated to making memorable experiences that are more than simply putting a familiar coat of paint on a rushed title.
The most well known studios for the success of these titles, Rocksteady Studios and WB Games Montreal, have excelled with taking the popular characters like Batman and building entire worlds around them. As a result, players still use theArkhamseries to judge other superherotitles, with Rocksteady having essentially set the bar for what any other developer needs to do. With the pool of talent available to Warner Bros. Interactive, and the power of next-gen gaming, the possibilities really are endless, but maybe Superman also needs to be taken into an unexpected direction to succeed on his own.
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Next-Gen Triggers
One of selling points of the new consoles, especially with launch titles releasing across multiple platforms and generations, is the new controllers that give players a whole new way to immerse themselves into games. While thePS5’s DualSense gets more praisefor its haptic feedback, the Xbox Series X does have its own set of next-gen features that sets it apart from previous consoles. In both cases, the adaptive and impulse triggers could actually be the key to moving a Superman game in a new direction that wouldn’t be possible with any other superhero.
There are a few things that set Superman apart from other superheroes, DC or otherwise, and that’s the fact that his incredible power is sometimes the exact thing that he has to struggle against. He can only do so much by punching things really hard, and while some of the highest stakes have pit him against monsters like Doomsday that can’t be beaten with brute force, that isn’t where the characters best moments in the comics are found. It’sSuperman’s human moments that fans loveabout the character, meaning that the best use for next-gen controllers could be to force players to limit themselves while controlling him, with the pressure the player inputs directly relating to the damage dealt.
New Approach to Health
In any other game, having damage linked to how hard a player presses a button will often incentivize players to smash their controllers to pieces, but there is an argument to be made for a Superman title to force players to hold back. For a new Superman title, it wouldn’t be about trying to kill an opponent, as the character famously doesn’t do this, instead the focus would be on mitigating damage and killing as few people as possible. This can also create a new threat for players that allows the character to still letSuperman keep his god-like statusin the DC universe, and offer a challenge for players to overcome within the game.
It might not be theSuperman game fans are expecting, but whoever Warner Bros. Interactive hands the reins to on this project should consider not giving the Man of Steel a health bar, but instead giving it to everyone else. Using a system similar toAssassin Creed’s desynch mechanic for killing too many innocents, the fail-state for the next Superman game should come from failing to save enough people in any given situation. There are plenty of games with morality systems in place that differentiate between killing and incapacitating an enemy, so it wouldn’t be to strange for the next Superman title to use the same mechanic to stand out and give the character a proper outing.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leagueis currently in development.
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