A reader is nonplussed over the lack of superhero games this generation and in particular the way Warner has handled DC Comics.
Just as it was a quiet E3 this year it seems to be a quiet San Diego ComicCon as well for 2019, at least from the perspective of where Im writing on Friday morning. A lot of that has to do with Avengers: Endgame having just come up and there not being any new Marvel movies until next year now (baring any shock reveals at the Marvel panel on Saturday night). You might have thought that would be the perfect opportunity for DC and others to take advantage but as far as I know they dont have anything to show either.
So, yes, film companies are just as bad as games publishers when it comes to taking advantage of an opportunity or any kind of forward planning. But when you combine film and games, well… then you get a kind of super-stupidity that stacks up into some of the most bizarre decisions Ive ever seen from any so-called business. Or rather the complete lack of decisions.
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One of the few big things at ComicCon so far has been Marvels games panel, which is literally the first year theyve been able to have one because at last they have more than one console game coming at the same time. Much has been written about how weird it is that Marvel has ignored gaming for the last decade and is only now, slowly, starting to get into it – just as the original cast start to leave the movies (much like how the entire Star Wars sequel series is going to have been and gone before EA has a single dedicated game out about it).
This week it was revealed that Marvels Spider-Man has become the best-selling superhero game of all-time, which is such a minor achievement Im surprised they even bothered to mention it. The only notable game it beat is Batman: Arkham City and the other Rocksteady games, a series that started just a year after the Marvel Cinematic Universe and seemed to put Warner Bros. (who own DC Comics) in the position to dominate superhero video games just as Marvel dominates superhero movies.
And what happened? They made four Batman games (one of which they now pretend doesnt exist, because Rocksteady didnt make it) and didnt do anything else except a couple of Mortal Kombat clones. No Superman game, no Wonder Woman game, no new Batman, no Suicide Squad, no Aquaman, nothing…
The studio that made Batman: Arkham Origins (the one Rocksteady like to pretend doesnt exist) have gone this entire generation without making a single game, supposedly after having several ideas, including Batman and Suicide Squad games, cancelled. I mean, if you thought the DC movies had been badly managed then thats nothing on the games. At least the movies actually exist!
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Presumably, at some point before the next ice age, there will be new DC games that arent just Injustice but its been so long now that its almost certainly going to be Batman again and then well be right back at square one. The Arkham games should have been the gateway to the whole DC universe and now even theyve been forgotten and its almost as if they never existed.
There is the question of what Rocksteady is working on, which is rumoured to be some kind Read More – Source
