With the cancelation of Wonder Woman and the closure of studio Monolith Productions, Warner Bros. has stated that their games will only focus on DC, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, and Mortal Kombat. Seeing them put “DC” in that list is comical because we know the publisher will focus on one character: Batman.
As much as we love The Dark Knight here in Gfinity, seeing DC focus all of its attention on this character and his supporting cast has been disappointing. Everyone hoped the Wonder Woman game would have changed things, but it looks like WB won’t take any big risks soon.
In comparison, Marvel Rivals is a ridiculously popular hero shooter, making casual gamers aware of characters like Squirrel Girl, Luna Snow, and Jeff the Shark. The fact that heroes like Luna Snow and Jeff are becoming popular with mainstream audiences shows how well this game has done.
DC focuses too much on Batman, while Marvel is willing to let their other characters shine and make them some money. After Arkham Knight, DC decided the best way to continue with their games was to give players two Batman properties without the Dark Knight.
Gotham Knights was set in an alternate universe where he died for real, letting players control Robin, Nightwing, Batgirl, and Red Hood. On paper, this game had the potential to be great, but the focus on co-op made going through the campaign alone more difficult than it should have been.
Do we even need to mention Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League? For some reason, this game was set in the Arkham universe, was more live-service slop, and proceeded to treat these characters badly.
All of this could have been avoided if they had set this in a different universe, but they chose a beloved version of this character. The death of Kevin Conroy was an unfortunate event that made his character’s “death” in this game feel even more disrespectful, which isn’t anyone’s fault.
Marvel has had its fair share of busts and bad gaming decisions. Avengers, for example, dipped its toes into live-service gaming and is now a de-listed title. The company also prevented X-Men and Fantastic Four characters from appearing in Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, resulting in a small roster lacking favorites. While the new Beyond mod helped improve the game, they needed those mutants.
That’s also not to say Marvel hasn’t favored certain characters over others. Insomniac made Marvel’s Spider-Man because he’s an icon, and they weren’t going to start a new franchise with the Inhumans. However, Miles Morales got a spin-off game because of that game’s popularity, and he’s a fairly new character. Miles is even set to lead Marvel’s Spider-Man 3, though Peter Parker won’t be down for the count.
It’s also worth noting that the company never settled on focusing on just one or two Marvel characters. We got the excellent Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 on Switch, which gives fans a fun button-masher with a good mix of MCU favorites and comic book obscurities. Soon, games will be based on Iron Man, Black Panther, and Captain America.
Although it wasn’t a financial success, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy learned from the mistakes of Avengers and was a pure single-player experience. This was a pretty ambitious title, as players only controlled Star-Lord in a narrative-driven third-person shooter filled with choices to make. While the story never changes too much, the amount of writing and dialogue is commendable, showing a ton of effort from the people involved.
Finally, there's Marvel Rivals. What else needs to be said? It's the perfect hero shooter with great character designs, fun gameplay, and microtransactions that are fairly priced. It's a shame that layoffs hit them hard, but that's just the games industry these days.
DC needs to rethink its strategy and see what’s making Marvel so hot right now, at least in the game space. James Gunn has learned from the DCEU’s mistakes, as Superman looks pretty good thus far.
However, they might need to take a page out of Marvel’s book and try to make more games that aren’t just Batman. Everyone would appreciate an Injustice 3 or some kind of Justice League game.