As many of you may already know, I am currently about halfway through my PS4 Spider-Man DLC play-through which you can of course follow along with by subscribing to the Respawning.co.uk YouTube channel. Playing this DLC and the main Spider-Man game itself has got me thinking what I imagine most people who have played the game is thinking; which Marvel hero should be the next one to get their very own video game experience?
It doesn’t seem like that long ago that superhero games were seen as just movie tie-in cash grabs rather than the massively successful AAA titles that they have become, mostly thanks to the likes of the Batman Arkham series, and the aforementioned Spider-Man… So it’s safe to say that the next hero to grace our consoles can expect similar levels of success; but who would be the best fit?
My initial instinct was Thor, probably because my 2018 game of the year was God of War and the similarities on how you could design those games are obvious; remember the satisfaction of being able to throw and call back Kratos’ axe? Yup we’re all thinking Mjolnir! As satisfying as that would be though, I can’t help but feel that playing as Thor would be too overpowering. What I love about Batman and Spider-Man is that those characters can often find themselves in dangerous life-threatening situations that you as the player have to find ways out of, where as it would take a lot to get that same sense of danger when playing as a literal god… So for that reason I wouldn’t go with Thor, and for pretty much the same reason that rules out the Hulk as well.
So who then? I was extremely close to choosing Ant-Man because the more I think about it, the more I want to play a game where I can run around switching between being a tiny man and being a giant! Though after mulling it over, I think Ant-Man’s rogue gallery could let the game down as other than maybe Yellow Jacket, there isn’t many recognisable villains that could feel like a big threat. Eventually, after probably thinking about all this a little too much, I have landed on Mr Tony Stark himself; Iron Man! But why?
Well the most obvious reason this would work is that Iron Man is now a household name; I would argue just as much as Spider-Man or Batman mostly thanks to the worldwide domination of the MCU… So the developer would not have to worry about shifting copies! Maintaining the Iron Man suit and using mini games to unlock extra gadgets for it could work very similar to the way it does for Spider-Man, as well as unlocking different versions of the classic suit. Combat could be an issue as Iron Man isn’t the type to be getting up close and dirty to use a string of martial arts moves, and there would also be a lack of stealth mini games that worked so well for both Spidey and the bat! But for what Iron Man lacks in stealth, he would definitely make up for in how much fun it would be to fly around an open world city, zapping bad guys in his super powered armour.
If this game was to be made, then the developer would need to go careful as to not make Iron Man too overpowered, otherwise we run into the Thor issue again. This could probably be said for most heroes though, and I think you could easily get around the issue. You could do a story where Tony is early in his Iron Man career, or maybe do the classic video game ‘protagonist loses all his powers and has to get them back’ shtick… Hey if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Add into the mix a long list of villains to fight from Justin Hammer all the way to The Mandarin, and our super genius millionaire won’t be running out of foes any time soon. Nor will he be lacking friends; Iron Man would support a massive cast of side characters that could potentially include Pepper Potts, Happy Hogan and of course War Machine. All of which could be used for side missions that change up the pace much like the MJ missions in Spider-Man.
Plus let’s not ignore the fact that if this were to happen, it would likely be in Insomniac’s hands, and would be seen as the next step into a potential crossover universe, like a video game version of the MCU… And who doesn’t want to see that?! If they really wanted to spoil us, they could even have a cameo by the web slinger, maybe have Peter Parker & Tony Stark partner up for a few fights much like Batman does in the Arkham games with the likes of Nightwing and Catwoman.
So there you have it, that is why I would pick Iron Man to be the next superhero to get the video game treatment, and I like to think that a lot of gamers and comic book nerds alike would agree with me and go out in their numbers to buy this game if it ever became a thing. Can you think of somebody who would work even better? Let me know in the comments…