Why Is a Superman Game so Hard to Make?

We’ve seen classic games in the superhero world. The Batman: Arkham trilogy, Insomniac’s Spider-Man series, and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, just to name a few. But there’s one superhero who just can’t get right. The Man of Steel himself, Superman. 

There have been some attempts at it. A few beat-em-ups and side scrollers, but nothing has ever landed. And then came the most infamous of all superhero games: Superman 64. A game so bad, it’s become a legend. The closest we’ve gotten to an average Superman game is Superman: Shadow of Apokolips, and that still didn’t even reach that mark.

SUPERMAN NEEDS HELP

I understand why it’s so hard to knock one of these out of the park. A character who is mostly invincible has to be a pain to pull off in a game. You’ve got a Red Sun, magic, and Kryptonite as weaknesses to use, but they’re all very specific in how they work against Superman.

Outfitting fodder characters with Kryptonite bullets just for Superman to heal from over time doesn’t work because that’s not how he works. Red Sun is holding him down indefinitely. Magic will hurt him and over time weaken him consistently. How do you make the game fun if there’s no danger of your character dying? The Superman Returns movie tie-in game (remember those?) tried an interesting idea by giving the city of Metropolis a health bar instead of Superman himself, but the rest fell flat.

Superman has enemies that can straight up throw hands with him and present an issue. The most famous of these being Doomsday. Brainiac tests him on a different level, but I can see the “same enemies” complaint coming in on every review now. There’s a good game here because there’s more than enough story to tell.

THE STORIES ARE THERE

Superman is not my favorite superhero. Not even close. I’m a Deadpool and Batman guy. But what I’m not (anymore) is a “Superman is boring” guy. There are great stories to be told in video game format. The stakes are there, and so is the character.

He’s an interesting character because he has all this power and chooses not to exert it all. Like Batman, he has self-imposed limits he could easily ignore. The Injustice storyline is a great example of a Superman with the cuffs off. What makes Superman great is he’s an alien who chooses to operate with a certain level of humanity. He’s very aware of his power yet sees value in being human. That’s what makes his stories interesting. It’s his powers that make creating a game difficult.

But, maybe I’m overthinking this. It’s possible the best version of a Superman game ignores trying to make sense of his powers in a gaming context and just lets you run wild with the character against his enemies. Actually, that’s not a bad idea. Let’s run with that and see what happens.