Why have we never got a good Superman solo game?

Why have we never got a good Superman solo game? It’s a simple enough question, but one with an answer so complex it’d make a genius like Lex Luthor cross-eyed.

Standing for truth, justice, and the American way, Superman is undoubtedly one of the most popular heroes of all time. He’s part of a pantheon, alongside Spider-Man and Batman, as one of the greatest superheroes ever.

Yet, while there have been award-winning Spider-Man games and Batman games, poor Clark never really got an adaptation worthy of his alter ego’s name. In fact, the Superman games rank from downright dreadful (Did anyone else just have a flashback to flying through rings while playing Superman 64?) to games so average you wouldn’t even remember their titles if I told you them five minutes ago.

Sure, the occasional team-up game has given the Man of Steel his time to shine — like the underrated Justice League Heroes or the Injustice fighting games — but Superman’s never got his version of Arkham Asylum? So why is that, and how do we fix it? 

Put the super in Superman

EA

Well, the first answer is the most apparent. It’s hard to make a game with stakes when you’re playing as someone who could take a bubble bath in a volcano and beat the Hulk in arm wrestling. He’s not just invulnerable and strong, either. Clark’s got super speed, super hearing, laser eyes, freeze breath, and on top of all that, he can fly.

Yes, Superman’s vast and incredible power set makes him a difficult character to adapt to video games. If you include all of his powers, you risk making the player too strong and robbing the game of challenge, but if you don’t give him all the benefits of his unique Kryptonian biology, then you’re going to get people complaining that it doesn’t feel like you’re really playing like Superman. 

So, how do you thread that needle? Well, the obvious answer is Kryptonite, which would rob Clark of his gifts, but that’s a pretty Route 1 way of dealing with it. No, there are far better solutions to this problem than chucking green rocks at Clark. Some adaptations, like the Superman Returns game, made it so your ‘health bar’ was, in fact, Metropolis’s health, and if it went too low, it was presumed the city had been destroyed. It was a novel way of giving the game some stakes, and I think that while that game was a little dull, it was along the right lines. 

You could also do what Bruce Timm did when he adapted Clark for the Superman Animated Series. Rather than using the uber Superman from the comics, he instead drew his inspiration from older source material before Clark was a flying brick in a blue onesie. This meant his version of Superman was still far stronger than other heroes but not ludicrously overpowered. A blend of the Superman Returns approach and the Timms could work very nicely.

You’re boring, Clark… 

Titus Interactive

The second reason I believe we’ve not had a brilliant Superman game is because of a certain stigma surrounding the character. It’s a problem that’s persisted for years, especially in the comic book world, but it’s also bled into the realm of cinema as well: Superman is a fundamentally boring character. 

From the outside, it’s easy to see why. Clark is the most powerful hero; he has a loving family, and life seems pretty great to him. If drama is essential to storytelling, then Clark’s story sounds pretty unessential; after all, there’s no problem he can’t deal with. Except that’s an absurd way to look at the character; they’ve been telling Superman stories for more than 85 years, and he’s still going strong. 

Just pick one of his dozens of iconic storylines and start from there. That’s basically what Insomniac does with Spider-Man, and those games are brilliant adaptations of some of Spidey’s most convoluted stories. 

More than that, I’d argue that Clark’s story is essential. He’s basically the ultimate immigrant, sent from his home as a baby and raised in a foreign land; he assimilates into their culture and uses his abilities to help his new home. 

Yet despite his altruism, there are still those, Lex Luthor being the most prominent, who refuse to ever let him forget he’s an alien. But amazingly, and sadly not like in our own world, Superman is not just accepted by the people of his new home he’s embraced. It’s a story of hope and optimism born from disaster and loss. I can’t imagine anyone thinking that’s boring.

Maybe I’m getting a bit soppy in my older age, but people learn so much through the art they consume. If there were a game championing the immigrant story, well I think that’d be something pretty special. 

Whatever happened to the man of Tomorrow?

Of course, the real reason we’ve not got a AAA Superman game is that while I can wax poetically about the Man of Tomorrow, such an endeavor would cost more than Bruce Wayne spends on batarangs, and while single-player games are still a thing (Thanks Baldur’s Gate 3), they’re not an attractive investment to companies looking at their bottom dollar. 

After all, you can’t charge $15.99 a month for a Superman battle pass if you’ve made a thoughtful meditation on Superman’s immigrant status instead of a battle royale game. Who knows, maybe I’m being cynical, and there were rumblings of a Superman game a few years ago. Maybe when the new movie about the classic hero hits the silver screen, there’ll be renewed interest in the character, and the powers that be will finally realize we need the Man of Tomorrow, today. 

If you can’t get enough of Superman then check out our article breaking down James Gunn’s Superman movie or our list of all the upcoming DCU movies including The Batman 2 and Joker 2.

This op-ed is part of Dexerto’s HeroFest, a week celebrating all things superheroic. Check out the full HeroFest schedule here, including our list of the best superhero TV shows.