LIKE BONNIE TYLER, I’M HOLDING OUT FOR A SUPERHERO UNTIL THE END OF THE NIGHT.

With the MCU dominating box offices, why are great superhero games so rare?

Flip over to p102 and you’ll find us delving into the depths of the Lego Aquaman DLC content pack for Lego DC Super-Villains. As far as movie videogame tie-ins get, that’s about the best we can hope for these days, but it boggles the mind as to why.

After all, it’s not just Lego Aquaman that’s got me thinking about the current dearth of great superhero games. To tell the truth it’s been niggling at my superhero-loving brain since E3 2018, when I was first ushered into a little room and my hands were placed lovingly around the controller that was hooked up to the new Iron Man game. Sorry, I mean the new BioWare game, Anthem.

I’ve written about Anthem every way I know how in the months since – I’m massively looking forward to it. But catch me down the milkshake shack chatting with someone none the wiser about the game-o-sphere and you’ll quickly find me making my way to the easiest explanation of what it is: “a sci-fi RPG game where you’re basically in an Iron Man suit”.

It’s not that good superhero PlayStation 4 games, or even good superhero movie tie-in games don’t exist. SpiderMan 2 and X-Men Origins: Wolverine stand out, but both were released over ten years ago. It’s not that no games since then have tied into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but you’d be forgiven for forcibly erasing the likes of Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America on PlayStation 3 from your mind.

MOVIE MAGIC

It seems that in the last couple of generations great superhero games have been few and far between. We’ve only really had Rocksteady’s Batman Arkham series, and some decent Spidey titles preceding Insomniac’s Marvel’s Spider-Man. Arguably being free from being movie tie-ins has allowed both those to be so good, but why do we have to wait so long for hits? When Marvel Studios is cranking out hit movies with plans well in advance for future films, why can’t a range of great developers lock in some amazing games based on them? There is, of course, Square Enix’s The Avengers in the works, but right now it’s Anthem and our imaginations.