Superman Could Succeed in Gaming By Following One Great Batman Venture

For decades the video game medium has been filled with games focusing on or featuring DC Comics’ Batman. From titular roles in the Batman: Arkham series to smaller appearances in games such as MultiVersus, the Dark Knight has remained a consistent figure in modern gaming generations. The same could not be said for the other half of the world’s finest heroes, Superman. While the Man of Steel has been featured in several games, including Injustice and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, he’s seldom been the singular focus. DC Comics could rectify this issue by adapting Superman into a more story-driven game similar to Batman: The Telltale Series.

Common Issues With Superman-Focused Games

Batman has dozens of games to his name, but Superman only has a few dedicated to him alone, with most of these games playing just alright or being abysmally broken and tedious. Games such as Superman: The New Superman Adventureswere glorified flying simulators, more often restricting players to fly through rings than performing combat or rescuing people. Meanwhile, Superman Returns was based loosely on the 2006 film of the same name but functioned more similar to Hulk video games, rather than allowing gamers to truly play as the Man of Steel.

The biggest issue with creating a Superman video game is how to properly adapt Superman’s powers into balanced gameplay. Superman is often claimed to be an overpowered hero since he has near impenetrable skin, heat vision, x-ray vision, freezing breath, super strength, super speed, a genius-level intelligence (depending on who’s writing him), a solar flare explosion ability, and he can fly. Allowing players to be practically invincible with all of these powers could make Superman’s gameplay dull very quickly if not executed properly. Due to this concern, Superman is hardly ever able to use his powers to their full extent in his various game appearances.

A Telltale-like Superman Game Could Be a Knockout

One way DC Comics could solve this Superman gameplay issue is by developing a more story-focused game for the Last Son of Krypton akin to Batman: The Telltale Series. Similar to previous Telltale games, Batman: The Telltale Series and its subsequent season had gamers play as Batman via a point-and-click and quick-time event format. During action sequences, players had to pay attention or miss a button prompt, forcing players to restart a scenario or be left with a negative impact on future events. In between action sequences, players could often explore areas looking for items or clues for potential dialogue instances. During dialogue sequences, players can make choices that will impact their relationship with other characters and affect branching narratives.

With Telltale-like games, gameplay is rarely the focus. Rather, the story and the player’s choice to affect and change the story is the main appeal. For example, in Batman: The Enemy Within, players could either choose to trust John Doe Joker or attempt to arrest him, leading to widely different endings. If DC were to develop a Telltale-like Superman game, Clark Kent could still use all of his abilities as he normally would in the comics without making him feel overpowered. It could also spotlight more of Superman’s less destructive side by having sequences focus on Kent’s relationship with his co-workers at the Daily Planet or having him work stealthily as an investigative journalist.

Potential Story Influences for a Telltale-like Superman Game

While Batman: The Telltale Series was designed as an original narrative, it still used aspects from classic Batman tales to construct its narrative, such as Batman: The Long Halloween. A Telltale-like Superman game could also be built around an original narrative or be built around one of the Man of Steel’s many acclaimed comics. If DC wants to reach a broader audience with a Superman game, they could adapt aspects of Peter J. Tomasi’s Superman run featuring Superman and Lois Lane raising their son Jon Kent as Superboy. For a more traditional DC Comics story, this type of Superman game could adapt Geoff Johns’ Superman: Secret Origin and use parts from Johns’ later books on Superman, such as the New Krypton storyline.