It’s been a bad few months for licensed superhero games. EA just canceled their Black Panther game after years of being in development, closing down the development studio as well. Before that, Monolith Soft also canceled their Wonder Woman game, which was supposed to have the acclaimed Nemesis system from the Middle-Earth titles.
Wonder Woman and Black Panther were announced with quick CGI trailers and no gameplay. Because of this, we’ve concluded that future superhero games shouldn’t be announced unless they have gameplay trailers. Technically, we’d prefer it if all video games were announced with gameplay trailers, but this has been a bigger issue for this specific sub-genre.
What superhero games were announced with no gameplay trailers?
Too many. Aside from the poor cases of Black Panther and Wonder Woman, Marvel’s Wolverine was also revealed with no gameplay trailer.
Due to the cancellations of Black Panther and Wonder Woman, many fans are worried about the fate of Marvel’s Wolverine. Granted, all of these superhero games have different studios working on them, but the point still stands. If these two major games could get canceled without ever showing gameplay, we imagine other titles might also fail.
EA supposedly has an Iron Man game coming out, but that was also announced without a major gameplay trailer. In fact, it didn’t even get a cool cinematic CGI trailer, making us wonder if this will have the same fate as Black Panther. At least Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra has been getting some updates, even if they aren’t gameplay-focused.
Are superhero games losing their appeal?
It’s hard to say, but we do think fancy CGI trailers aren’t enough to win fans over anymore.
Developers need to win over gamers with actual gameplay clips, so the poor teasers from Wonder Woman and Black Panther aren’t enough.
There’s a lot that can be said about Marvel’s Spider-Man, but Insomniac Games was smart enough to reveal this property with actual gameplay. Fans might not remember this, but the first two trailers for this game already had gameplay. It’s why gamers were able to get properly excited for this open-world superhero game.
Not every superhero game succeeds with a gameplay trailer. For every Marvel Rivals or Marvel Cosmic Invasion, there’s a Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy that fails to make a dent in sales charts. GOTG was a lot better than people expected, but its first overly long trailer and similar graphical style to Marvel’s Avengers doomed this cinematic third-person shooter.
Still, gamers can’t be relegated to simple Marvel or DC fans. If a superhero game comes out, it has to stand out and make an immediate impression. Hype for Wonder Woman and Black Panther fizzled out quickly because we never saw gameplay. Marvel Cosmic Invasion already has fans talking because it has excellent beat-em-up mechanics. Gameplay matters.
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