Why Are Superhero Video Games Almost Impossible To Pull Off?
The genre we need to be perfected, but don't deserve?
There’s a crushing bittersweetness that comes with any new video game based in the world of superheroes. On one hand, most fans are happy to lap up whatever comic-centric content they can get their hands on; but on the other, it’s likely to be bad.
This apprehensive mentality toward ‘super games’ hasn’t blossomed overnight, either.
No sir, only after a few decades steadily building a catalogue of super-sized disappointments can one lose so much faith in a genre that has the potential to dominate a sizeable chunk of the industry.
From the 1979 Superman release on the Atari 2600 all the way up to last year’s Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, superhero games have been falling short since way before Tom Holland, Marvel’s current Spider-Man, was a glint in papa Holland’s eye.
But why is it so difficult to pull these games off? And will we now see the end product we desire, now gaming technology has the tools to realise the kind of caped capers previous generations could only dream of?
It’s been a futile pursuit for the vast majority of superhero games out there, leaving us to question why they’re so darn tough to pull out of the bag.