Rocksteady Needs To Revisit Its Canned Superman Game
Forget lighting up the sky above Gotham City with the Bat-Signal, we should be looking up and asking whether it's a bird, a plane, or is it Superman? When it comes to superhero video games, few have stumbled at so many hurdles quite like the Metropolis Marvel - we're looking at you Superman 64.
Things have come a long way since then, and thanks to both Rocksteady's Arkham games and Insomniac's ongoing Spider-Man franchise, our faith in superhero games has been somewhat restored. Although Rocksteady is already delivering something of a Superman-lite outing with Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, could it also be time for the acclaimed developer to return to its idea for a Superman standalone?
How Did Rocksteady Build The Foundations For Super Superhero Games?
Click to enlargeIt was back in 2009 that Rocksteady first locked us up in Arkham Asylum and threw away the key. Batman games were nothing new at this point, but in a post-The Dark Knight world, the developer was taking us back to the gritty roots of the Caped Crusader. Inspired by 1989's brooding Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth graphic novel, we were a million miles away from the spandex and codpiece of Joel Schumacher's Batman movies.
Christopher Nolan has reinvigorated our appetite for a more serious Batman, and video games were following suit. From these humble beginnings, we broke free from Arkham with the bigger and bolder Arkham City, which also added playable favourites like Robin (Tim Drake) and Nightwing (Dick Grayson). With two winners under its belt, Rocksteady rounded off the trilogy with the sometimes bloated Arkham Knight in 2015.
Although not perfect, it was Arkham Knight that put the pieces in place for a Superman spinoff. Alongside a Daily Planet headline that reads "Meteorites hit Smallville", there's a poster for Metropolis, a grunt mentioning "that freak from Metropolis", and Lex Luthor even popped up behind Vicki Vale in Bruce Wayne's death scene.
All signs pointed toward a full-blown Superman caper, but as well as hopes for a fourth game that would focus on Damien Wayne and the Court of Owls, it never came to be. These days, Rocksteady is beavering away on the delayed Kill the Justice League, while Warner Bros. Montreal is developing Gotham Knights as a spiritual successor to the Arkhamverse (with the Court of Owls). Sadly, Rocksteady's Superman title has been hit with Mr. Freeze's ray gun.
What Happened To Rocksteady's Superman Game?
Click to enlargeIt seems the concept of a fourth Arkham AND Superman game was just too much for Rocksteady, meaning both were lost and/or amalgamated into Kill the Justice League. As late as 2018, there were hopes Rocksteady would stick its pants on over its trousers and fly into E3 with a massive Superman announcement. The years came and went, with no official word on what happened to the developer's planned project.
Doubling down on the fact it wasn't working on a Superman game, Rocksteady Co-Founder and Game Director Sefton Hill reiterated the studio wasn't tackling a Clark Kent spinoff. Even then, some still refused to let Superman go. It was only with the reveal of Kill the Justice League and an evil Superman that we finally gave up on the idea.
The closest we actually got was some glossy-looking artwork from WB Montreal concept artist Joël Dos Reis Viegas (see above). It included the Man of Steel swooping down over a Metropolis backdrop - channelling some serious Arkham vibes. So, it turns out a listing for Rocksteady working on Superman: World's Finest might've been one of the biggest video game hoaxes we've seen.
Is There Still Room For A Superman Game?
Click to enlargeIt's sad that we won't get to see Superman get the Rocksteady treatment (for now). Picture the scene, Rocksteady takes a leaf out of Insomniac's book and lets us take control of Lois Lane as an investigative journalist as Insomniac did with MJ in Spider-Man. There would be a great dynamic of balancing the lives of Clark Kent the journo in the day and super-strength spaceman by night.
Elsewhere, Rocksteady showed us how to reimagine classic Batman villains in the style of the New 52 comics. Similar to the Arkhamverse's cockney Penguin and hacker Riddler, we'd love to see what Rocksteady can do with Darkseid, Lex, Bizarro, and the rest. Kill the Justice League pitches Supes as a Brainiac-controlled villain, which at least gets around the problem of playing a standalone where you simply fly around as an OP hero.
Sadly, it could be a case of too little, too late. Rocksteady's version of Metropolis was tipped to be a million miles away from the shadow and rain-soaked streets of Gotham, and from what we've seen from Kill the Justice League, it looks like this aesthetic has carried through. Assuming Kill the Justice League rounds off with Superman returned to his heroic ways, there's a slim chance he could get a solo game.
Remembering that Insomniac has multiple superhero games in the works at once, and with reports of a Marvel Gaming Universe, Rocksteady could craft a DCGU. Then again, look how the DCEU worked out on the silver screen (it didn't). Ultimately, the reception of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League will likely define whether Rocksteady sticks the superhero landing or heads somewhere new. Hopefully, we'll see the flutter of Kal-El's cape before long.
