Despite comic book characters dominating the box office and having a strong presence on television, they are lacking in the video game world. Sure, there are great successes like the Batman: Arkham franchise, Spider-Man for the PS4, and the Injustice Franchise, but they aren’t as dominate as The Avengers does in theaters.
In this writer’s humble opinion, there have really been only two superheroes that have gotten gaming justice: Batman and Spider-Man. In those games, you really feel like the caped crusader or the witty web slinger. While the Injustice games are quality and successful, they are more fighting games than true superhero games.
There are hundreds of other heroes out there that deserve to be realized in video games. Here, we will discuss DC characters only. We have already done the Marvel Cinematic Universe article and it may be worth checking out if you’re reading this. The goal is to talk about characters and types of games and mechanics that can work with a character’s powers and history. All right, let’s get to it.
GREEN ARROW
Green Arrow is very similar to Batman. He has no powers, relies on gadgets, and primarily fights hand to hand. He would be the easiest hero to adapt in game form that hasn’t been done yet. The combat would have to be adjusted to fit Green Arrow’s character, particularly when it comes to using the bow, but the changes wouldn’t be very drastic from Arkham or Spider-Man. Upgrades could work by researching different arrow types and learning new martial arts skills in combat. And, of course, it would be free roam through Star City. As for story ideas, one could make a game based around the scrapped supermax prison movie (look it up if you haven’t heard about it). That idea might play very similarly to Arkham Asylum and may not be ideal if you wanted to roam Star City. Some key villains could be Killer Frost, Prometheus, or Deathstroke.
BIRDS OF PREY
Wonder Woman might be the knee jerk choice to be the first female led superhero game, but we believe that the Birds of Prey would be a better and somewhat different choice. For one, it’s about a group instead of just one hero. Models for this sort of gameplay include Dragon Age: Inquisition or the multihero combat in Arkham Knight. As for characters, the game would rely on the less powerful members of the Birds of Prey like Harley Quinn, Batgirl, Huntress, Black Canary, and Lady Shiva. More powerful characters, like Big Barda, could cause balancing issues and plot holes that could hinder the game’s quality and reception. Whether or not the game is open world or not would entirely depend on how the game developers decide to tell their narrative, but we at WHM are sandbox fans, so that gets our vote.
SUICIDE SQUAD
This game was hinted at in the post credits scene of Arkham Origins so it was in development in some form. However development has stalled since then and it now looks unlikely that it will ever become a reality. Luckily, we have a pitch for what might have been or still could be.
Firstly, there should be two distinct modes in the game. The first would have you in the role of Amanda Waller. You’d work behind the scenes, striking deals and intimidating politicians, prison wardens, and other government officials, to have them hand over super criminals that have been put in prison by heroes. There would also be a mechanic where villains not on your team have the potential to break out of prison. As Amanda Waller, you will have limited amounts of time to acquire certain villains to for your task force before the villain decides prison isn’t really for them. Granted, those villains will end up back in jail at some point because prison is a revolving door in comics, but for how long is up to them.
Once your task force is assembled, you move into the other half of the game: the missions. The one constant you will always have on your missions is the squad leader. That would be Rick Flag or, for a heavier RPG approach, a player created character. The game would then take a Bioware turn, focusing on exploration and combat. Your party will consist of the squad members you recruited prior to the mission. Here, they will be able to demonstrate their own specific abilities and, like in Bioware games, can be played as.
The missions would take place in a variety of open worlds (like in Dragon Age: Inquisition) with the primary quests being secret government missions. However, there would be other side missions in these areas that task you with going after other supervillains (for recruitment or because Amanda says so) and even against some heroes that the Wall has issues with. The mission objectives will be straight forward enough, but the means of accomplishing them will depend entirely on your party’s skills and how they get along with one another. It will sort of be like Hitman in that regard where you have an objective but can go about it in multiple, and sometimes ridiculous, ways.
The party system in a Suicide Squad game could be set up in a much more intricate way than any other party system to date. As the squad leader, you will have the responsibility of keeping the crew in line, happy, and alive. Like Bioware games, you will have dialogue options with them that will affect your relationships in good, bad, and romantic ways. However, you must remember Amanda Waller’s golden rule and cannot let any members of the squad escape or be captured. You may be forced to kill members of your party by detonating their implanted bombs. Doing so will wipe out that character from the rest of the game and will have a ripple effect through the rest of the squad.
The important thing is to balance your relationship with the squad against your relationship with Amanda Waller. More often than not, the goals of these two sides will be at odds and the decisions you make about how to proceed in missions and dialogue options can cause the story to go in drastically different directions. Not only does this support replayability, but it can also have an impact on what your squad gets in terms of gear and abilities.
GREEN LANTERN
This property has the potential to be a few different games, but we’ll stick to just one for this pitch. Some of the gameplay options may be limiting of Green Lanterns’ since they are based around willpower and imagination, but no gaming system on earth could ever truly demonstrate that. This could be remedied partially by creating a wide range of abilities that are shaped through an upgrade system. Though the amount of abilities would be finite, this would provide enough diversity to meet some of the imagination aspect of Green Lantern.
In terms of what you’d be doing in the game, that’s simple: space cop. That’s essentially what a Green Lantern is. There would, however, be a main story that would have to do with other lantern colors or some other galactic menace, but that would be incorporated into the open world aspect of this game.
The main character of a Green Lantern game would greatly change the plot depending on who it is. A Hal Jordan game would be very different from a Jon Stewart game, which would be different from a Guy Gardner game, which would be different from a create-your-own Lantern game. If you based the game off of a create-your-own lantern, then the title of Green Lantern might be misleading. For a create-your-own lantern, it might be fun to explore the other lantern corps as playable options with distinct abilities for each color. It could add a layer of choice to the game and diverse replayability options.
TEEN TITANS
This would be more in the vain of the Birds of Prey and Suicide Squad pitches earlier with a dash of Arkham in there as well. For Teen Titans, despite having an open world (which essentially all of these game pitches have), it would be a set storyline like the traditional Arkham games. This writer grew up in the 2000s, so the Teen Titans would be Robin, Starfire, Raven, Cyborg, and Beast Boy. However, having other members involved might be a nice change of pace and could even be used in a recruiting mechanic (especially since Cyborg is now a member of the Justice League in the comics). This game could also have a variety of options for a main antagonist, from Trigon to Slade to the Brotherhood of Evil, to some other villain (Control Freak?). A mixed combat system featuring elements of Dragon Age, Arkham Knight, and Lord of the Rings: War in the North would be ideal, combing the free flowing style of Arkham with the group aspects of those games mentioned.
WONDER WOMAN
A Wonder Woman game already exists, sort of, and it’s called God of War. While the protagonist differs greatly and it wouldn’t be exactly like any of the God of War games, it would be very close in terms of aesthetic. In the game, Diana Prince would have to go up against supernatural foes from Greek mythology. This would be essential to pose as a realistic challenge to both Diana and the player. Wonder Woman fighting in WWI, while a great movie, would not make for an interesting game. She would be far too overpowered fighting common soldiers.
This game would also be singularly focused on Wonder Woman in the way Arkham Asylum was focused on just Batman. Ares, Hades, Zeus, and other could be potential antagonists or even an evil Amazon (but that last might not supply the minions to fight as well as the others would). The combat might be something like Dark Souls mixed with Arkham or even the most recent God of War.
SUPERMAN
Now we come to the big one. There has been much debate whether the Man of Steel could ever get a quality video game and, frankly, this writer believes it’s possible, though the task would be extremely difficult to find the right balance. Obviously, Superman is the most OP hero of all heroes. Yet there are story elements that could be employed to nerf his abilities in a believable way to make the game plausible but fun.
The most obvious way to nerf Superman would be to have Kryptonite in some way. While this is the easiest option, it’s also the most forced option. Prove us wrong, developers! Another way to tackle this OP conundrum is to take Superman off earth and have him fight aliens. Obviously, the Man of Steel would have to fight someone like Braniac, Darkseid, Mongul, or Doomsday, with Braniac and Darkseid being the best options to supply cannon fodder enemies. This could technically be done on or off Earth, but setting it off earth can put Superman in an atmosphere that canonically does not give him the power he gets while on earth under a yellow star.
Another intriguing idea to “nerf” Superman believably is to have a changing sun mechanic. How exactly one might go about this, we aren’t sure, but if you start with a red sun and somehow steadily transition to a blue sun as the game progresses, that could be a way for Supes to develop his skills in a believable way.
Lastly, the simple choice could be made to make it a Superman origin game. By this, we don’t mean the destruction of Krypton, but rather him getting accustomed to his powers like in the Man of Steel movie. This would provide a way for Clark Kent to learn his powers as he goes along with him unable to use certain abilities early on out of fear that he can’t quite control them yet.
PROPERTIES TOO DIFFICULT
There are a few properties that might seem obvious, but on closer inspection could be a little too hard to adapt to a quality game. Here’s who should NOT have their own game, based on lore and abilities.
- FLASH: The tricky part about the Flash would be his speed. It would be difficult to get the player to feel like they are moving incredibly fast while also maintaining a good amount of control. While this has been successful with vehicles in racing games, using it on a person has yet to be done in a satisfying way. No, Sonic does not count. We are going for a superhero game with the Flash, not a racing game collecting rings.
THERE MAY BE MORE...
I have no doubt that there are plenty of other heroes, and even some villains, that might deserve their own game. Hawkgirl comes to mind, but this writer knows less about her than the characters mentioned above. There are sure to be many more, however.
So those are the ideas. Thoughts? Have any ideas of your own? Share them and let’s see what we can come up with!