Why Every Superman Video Game Super Sucks

Super-powered problems require super-powered solutions

Years and years and years ago (damn he’s old), Kevin Smith told the story about how he dazzled a Warner Bros executive with his hot takes on how much their working script for a new Superman movie sucked (Kevin Smith Fandom).

The only reason he nearly missed getting hired to rewrite the script (that they ultimately didn’t use anyway lol ) is because he almost forgot to say, “And here’s how you can fix it.”

So here’s how you fix the next Superman video game.

But first, we need to spell out the problem.

Every Superman video game super sucks

There are only so many ways to have fun with Superman’s powers. Eventually, the audience realizes that as unlimited as a Kryptonian’s abilities seem to a human, they’re not limitless. Eventually, they’re kind of boring.

Storytellers keep facing the same conundrum. A lot of people rightfully say Superman is a boring character. They’d rather read about Batman or jump over to Marvel altogether.

But that’s because they’ve missed the best Superman stories.

Infinite potential causes infinite conflicts

The best Superman stories don’t give a darn about the awesome potential of his abilities. They lean into the same thing Richard Donner embraced in Superman ’78 and Superman II.

When he’s in action, Clark is capable of just about anything he puts his mind to — but it’s that seemingly infinite potential that causes his greatest conflicts.

The truth is he can’t be everywhere at once. He can’t help everyone. He can’t fix everyone’s problems. Some people even resent him for trying to help.

And then there are those who he chose to ignore because he flew in service to someone else’s salvation.

To them, it feels like evil. After all, they’re the ones who died.

But it’s not evil — it’s the essence of Superman’s conflict.

The truth is he can’t be everywhere at once. He can’t do everything at once. He has to choose who to save and how to save them.

More than that, he has to choose whether to save them. And that’s maybe the one thing Zack Snyder almost got right.

Goddamn, is Zack Snyder really about to save the day again?

Zack Snyder saves the day again

Even with super-powered good intentions, Superman is still a person who must grapple with the full impact of his actions. He cares about everyone, but he can’t care for everyone.

This has never been on a more powerful display than the recent episodes of Superman and Lois. Our favorite Kryptonian faces unique challenges now that he also faces fatherhood.

How do you juggle the legitimate demands of being physically and emotionally present for your family when your life before them was dedicated to punching the next super villain until they cried Krypto-uncle?

As Zod said in Superman II, Kal-El’s greatest weakness is simply that he cares about people. And given that those are the stories readers keep coming back for over and over and over, maybe we could make a video game around the same kinda stuff?

How to fix every Superman video game

Imagine a Superman game driven by your semi-open exploration of game-directed narratives. You can’t choose where in the story you start, but you can choose where you take the character from that point.

The point of the game is that the player is Superman. If the player chooses to go down a dark path (of conspicuously limited options, let’s not let them go full Injustice), they’re having as much fun as the best part of Superman III.

And as that superhero, they must face the same moral quandaries as Superman.

If you thought Zack Snyder being right about Superman sounded scary, listen to this.

Reddit already predicted which path players will take.

One game that got it wrong

The Nintendo 64 game came remarkably close. The designers tied Superman’s health bar not to his own vitality, but to that of the city of Metropolis. The character had to race from one (bizarre) challenge to the next in order to protect the place he’d called home.

And that was remarkably close to what audiences needed. Yes, we need Superman to care about what he’s protecting. But who on earth cares about cities like they’re people?

I’m not trying to take a Kryptonian-sized dump on architects (or people who feel about planets the way that character did about cars in Titane), but wtf were they thinking?

One game that got it right

The approach Telltale took to the Batman games would work great for a narrative-based Superman game focusing more on Kal/Clark’s identity, relationships, ideas, detective skills, ethics, etc.

In the Telltale Batman games, the choices you make as Bruce / Batman allow for the player to sketch out their own view of the character within the limits of that plot.

Is Batman violent? Cruel?

Is Bruce cold? Distant from his friends?

Does he abandon Harvey Dent to his demons?

Does he hold a grudge against Alfred for lying to him?

A video game player, Superman expert, and “very exhausted demiboy” named Nether (Twitter) told me how they took a softer approach with their version of Bruce Wayne.

The game allowed me to sketch out a version of Batman who, except for the absence of Robin, pretty much fit my ideal of the character. My Bruce was nearly always compassionate, gentle, forgiving, restrained in use of force where possible. I don’t necessarily think my Bruce was a common experience, but I appreciated that I could shape him into the kind of character I more frequently wish he was.

Nether went on to point out that lots of fans get really touchy about Superman’s characterization. A narrative semi-controlled by players gives them a world where the characterization no longer matter. Don’t like Superman?

What happens if you explore strange and silly ways to save Lois from her first airplane crash? I want to see gifs and memes and videos from the same people still breaking open Breath of the Wild (YouTube).

Just make sure to include characters like Lois. Jimmy. Krypto. Because it’s not enough to put the players in a story they want to explore. There need to be stakes.

No matter how you start the game, no matter what strategy you take, a lot of Superman’s friends are going to die.

Populate it with the people Superman super cares about

Superman can’t save everyone. The conflict — the motivation for players to play — is in choosing who to save, how to save them, and what that says about the kind of Superman they choose to be.

The question is never one of identity. You know who Superman is to you. You know who you are to you, too.

Well, unless you’re still in your egg.

But if you’re ready to come out…!

You know whether that mixture of Superman and you means you’re a good but complicated person, or whether you’re evil incarnate on a mission to never play the character of Superman ever again (The Hollywood Reporter).

The Death of Superman

The menu would open with several storylines to play through. Designers would offer players the option to customize minor setup details, such as if they select the storyline for “The Death of Superman” but want to start off with the Justice League already dead.

See also: “Is Death and Return of Superman Worth Playing Today?” — SNESDrunk (YouTube)

The game engine doesn’t need to predict a ton of moderating variables. The immersive narrative is, in a sense, persuading players to believe the game is real through the same immersive components of virtual reality.

Have you ever put on a VR headset? The render of the environment doesn’t need to be realistic at all.

Your brain quickly adapts and tells you that what you’re experiencing is real — if it just has a reason to need to process what it’s seeing as reality.

The cost of truth, justice, and the freedom to blast stuff with heat vision

Some players, of course, will choose horrifying setups.

Some players, for example, will choose to start with the maximum amount of lives to save — and then will simply do nothing. They’ll sit high in the air and watch carnage devastate Metropolis and everyone Superman seemingly cares about.

Hopefully the game designers have proper headlines from the Daily Planet ready to pronounce Game Over.

But most players — dear sun god Ra, I hope so — will embrace the diversity of experiences that are available through those carefully selected choices. The question is never so much whether Superman is a hero but what kind of hero he might be if you could make his choices for him.

Some of those choices will mean Lois dies before you can save her from Doomsday. Other choices will mean you beat Doomsday to the punch.

Some of those choices will mean the Daily Planet is destroyed, and with it Perry White, Jimmy Olsen, Cat Grant, and that unpublished article about why Ben Affleck was the best Superman. Period.

Superman said Earth is his home

Should Superman go to any alien planets? At least have the option? Surely a DLC could allow players to explore a Dan Shive-designed storyline with a queer-normative young Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes.

But in terms of Kal’s adult life, it’s hard to keep Clark Kent centered in the narrative if the story isn’t set in Metropolis.

How to represent his powers

Flight in general is hard to capture mechanically with the sort of fluidity Superman needs to have.

Even in games with more fluid flight mechanics, characters are still kind of slow and clunky to control in the air compared to how smoothly Superman is supposed to move.

Yes, Superman is bound by some degree of physics, but how are you supposed to evoke the sense that your main character is pushing against the gravity of the entire solar system?

In some ways, Spider-Man and Batman have it easier, because their mid-air traversal is done with gravity as most of us experience it on Earth, giving a greater sense of inertia, momentum, weight — something Superman’s flight is kind of immune to.

Secret identities: make completing the game as Clark just as impactful as Superman

In the Telltale Batman games, the secret identity is strongly foregrounded. A player can choose to approach a situation as Bruce through persuasion and charm rather than as Batman using blunt force intimidation.

In a Superman context, players could choose a more subtle approach as Clark Kent. What if parts of the game could be more fun and playful — or downright necessary — if played as Clark Kent?

The player could always choose to abandon their secret identity, but then they would face the same consequences that Superman inevitably faces in comic book stories.

That shouldn’t necessarily mean Game Over, but if you choose to reveal your identity, you’ll face a set number of storylines and circumstances to continue to explore the game.

The key

The key is to put the player in situations that depend on the kind of decisions they make regarding situations and characters that have an established relationship to Superman and Clark.

And the way you approach those situations has a dramatic impact.

Some people won’t survive.

The ones that do? Those are the people the player chose to save.

The ending belongs to the player. Or at least the experience that brought them to the moment it’s okay to turn the game off.

Will lots of people take the Grand Theft Auto approach to Superman?

Probably.

Save a planet, save a video game

And as far as video games go, there’s nothing wrong with players indulging their darker side. I love playing Mortal Kombat vs DC, as well as both Injustice games.

At least in this version of a Superman video game, your decisions have a narrative consequence. You go to save a planet, you won’t be there to stop Doomsday.

But hey, that frees you to finally try to find that wormhole to The Boys. It’s just like, my opinion, but Homelander may as well be a slightly more handsome version of Superboy Prime.

We have a secret weapon more powerful than Kryptonite

If you’re willing to fly that far, then we have a secret weapon. If no one wants to turn this into a Superman video game, let’s turn it into a video game for The Boys.

Who would have thought the fun way to play Homelander would be in choosing not to heat vision everyone in sight?