Upcoming Marvel and DC Comics licensed comic games: What can we look forward to?

Although the mass mania surrounding comic book heroes on the screen has been waning in intensity in recent years, films based on comic book themes are still reliably placed in the top ten highest-grossing films of the year, regardless of their generally poor quality. The stamp of the pop culture brand of the first category is also noticeable in the game industry, where the upcoming titles are also associated with the mass interest of the public, although their commercial success certainly does not come automatically here.

The current overview of all the announced titles with a DC Comics or Marvel license is not huge, but on the other hand, each of the mentioned games is supported by experienced creators who could take on their task with honor. The mentioned titles are thus worth noting not only for their pop culture theme, but also because of the people who work on them.

DC Comics

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League

• Developer: Rocksteady Studios
• Publisher: WB Games
• Portfolio: Batman: Arkham series
• Date of publication: May 26, 2023 (leaks about the postponement have not yet been officially confirmed)

This year marks eight long years since the release of Rocksteady’s last game, Batman: Arkham Knight. At the same time, few studios in the last two decades have achieved something as extraordinary as this British team.

Before the release of Batman: Arkham Asylum, practically no one knew the name of the studio, licensed games had a bad reputation, and few people believed the news. All that changed with the release of the first game in the Batman series. Fans were treated to a title that was able to convincingly capture what is appealing about the superhero theme. Pleasantly shocked Batman fans praised the team, among other things, for the understanding with which they took on the Bat universe.

Rocksteady then managed to repeat their success twice. At the same time, they have always combined knowledge of the material with great imagination, brilliant level design and gameplay that even Valve in its heyday would not be ashamed of.

The arrival of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League therefore naturally comes with a massive level of anticipation. The game somewhat surprisingly takes place after the events of Arkham Knight, but this time you take on the roles of four villains whose goal is to kill the evil versions of the Justice League heroes. There’s Captain Boomerang, Harley Quinn, King Shark and Deadshot to choose from. The game is designed as a multiplayer for up to four players who will be able to play together over the Internet. Shoes will help the soloists.

Compared to Gotham City, Metropolis plays with all the colors, and according to the demos so far, the creators rely more on shooting everything that moves. Emphasis on loot and cosmetic modifications of the characters and their weapons as required by the “live” model of the game is also evident. At the same time, last year’s Gotham Knights or the recently cut Marvel’s Avengers paid for the same concept.

Fans of the studio’s previous creations are not at all satisfied with the published samples and information, as the monotonous colorful shooter crowded with announcements and hopping seems more like a worse Fortnite. The previous work of Rocksteady will perhaps only be remembered by its films.

The recently deceased Batman voice actor Kevin Conroy played his last role as Batman in the game.

Wonder Woman

The announcement of the upcoming project from Monolith Productions probably did not make happy those who were hoping to complete the Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and Middle-earth: Shadow of War trilogy.

Monolith enjoys a reputation in the gaming industry as a creative studio that is not afraid to push the boundaries of genres and implement innovative technologies. In the case of their most recent projects from Middle-earth, it was the Nemesis system, giving your goblin enemies a greater degree of identity, as a result of which even rank-and-file combat became a little more personal. Celebratory articles are still being written about the great artificial intelligence in the game FEAR, the horror series Condemned or the spy shooter No One Lives Forever are classified as platinum category brands thanks to their individuality, ideas and mixing of genre elements.

Unfortunately, we still know very little about the new Wonder Woman. Similar to the games with the Lord of the Rings license, it is supposed to be a third-person title set in an open world. In addition to unspecified RPG elements, the game will write its own story, in which we will encounter characters from the modern world and the Amazons. From one sentence in the teaser, it seems that the protagonist Diana will return to her island homeland.

The plot will not make any reference to the film appearance of the handsome warrior, and her fans will have to give up their appetite for the virtual Gal Gadot. We know that the creators are once again implementing some form of the Nemesis procedural system from the Middle-earth series into their new release. According to the short description, this time it could apply not only to enemies, but also to your comrades.

The game was introduced with a short teaser featuring the game’s logo at the Game Awards in December 2021 and has been quiet since then.

The Wolf Among Us 2

The story of the rise, glory, fall and rebirth of Telltale Games would be a separate article. If you are one of those who are not aware of the work of these creators, then know that the story specialists massively popularized the “movie game” genre, where the vast majority of player interaction is limited to simple moving around the screen, pressing buttons during actions (QTE aka quick time events ) and the choice of answers or critical actions that (often seemingly) influence the further direction of the plot.

Fans praise the Telltale studio for the excellent quality of their scripts, critics, on the other hand, complain about the negligible consequences of your decisions and the technical quality of the games that the studio has churned out in the past like on a treadmill. After all, the crazy production pace bore a large share of the blame for the demise of the studio, which eventually managed to be resurrected.

The new team, in cooperation with former employees now working at AdHoc Studio, is preparing a sequel to one of the most successful brands of the previous era – an unconventional noir detective story with fairy-tale characters based on the comic book brand Fables. The first series was published ten long years ago.

The Wolf Among Us 2 was originally slated for release this year, but the team announced in March that it was pushing the sequel to 2024 due to the switch to Unreal Engine 5 and trying to avoid crushing overtime. Since the game was announced at the Game Awards in 2019, this is a marked change from the era when authors churned out episodes of their titles one after the other. The production is taking place in an effort to avoid the pitfalls behind the closure of the original Telltale Games. Unreal Engine 5 is supposed to result in the technical functionality of the game, which was embarrassing at times in the past.

In addition, this time the entire episodic project is created at once, so the authors will not have to glue the individual episodes together at the last minute. While the veterans of the original team from AdHoc Studio are in charge of the script, the newly formed Telltale Games are working on the gameplay and design.

The Wolf Among Us 2 is set six months after the events of the first series. In it, we will once again see Snow White in an unusually civilian form, while the main character, detective Bigby Wolf, receives therapy to help him manage his anger.

Marvel

Spider-Man 2

Insomniac Games’ portfolio of successful brands speaks for itself. Two years after the success of the first Spider-Man, the studio was bought by Sony, and judging by the quality of games like Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, it was a very good investment on the part of the console manufacturer.

In the second half of this year, Spider-Man 2 should pick up where the first one and its spin-off with Miles Morales left off. This time the pair will face off against Venom and the Russian hunter Kraven, known to fans of comics and anime. A question mark hangs over the participation of the Green Goblin, to whose arrival the story was kind of heading.

However, it has been confirmed that the voice of the character’s previous dubber Harry Osborne, who voiced numerous audio recordings in the first, will no longer be heard in the second. The reasons are similar to the transformation of Peter Parker in the remastered version of the original game – the actor Scott Porter was too different from the intended visual appearance of Harry Osborne, who is supposed to be significantly younger.

Despite the pair of main heroes – Peter and Miles – Spider-Man 2 is intended to be a purely single-player experience. The studio also confirmed that unlike God of War: Ragnarök and Horizon: Forbidden West, Spider-Man 2 will be exclusive to PS5. So PS4 owners will have to upgrade if they want to play the second Spider-Man.

Spider-Man 2 should be significantly longer than the first one. It will also be interesting to see how the creators deal with the environment. There is a danger that the third trip to the streets of the New York metropolis could seem too familiar to some players.

Wolverine

We will stay at Insomniac again. The studio is obviously true to its name and, in addition to Spider-Man 2, manages to work on the second major Marvel brand, this time with Wolverine in the lead role. The game was first introduced in late 2021, when development was in a very early stage. Not much is officially known, gaming journalist Jeff Grubb pro Giant Bomb however, he released a few interesting tidbits that should be taken as unconfirmed information.

The team is reportedly aiming for a late 2024 release date with the possibility of a 2025 delay, which makes sense given the studio’s previous high pace. Unlike Spider-Man, it shouldn’t be an open-world game, although it won’t be a linear experience either.

In this regard, Grubb compared the structure of Wolverine to the last two God of War games. The game will also be significantly gorier and will be rated M for Mature. Enemies should be able to amputate limbs in the news.

Insomniac will now focus on promoting Spider-Man 2, so we won’t hear about Wolverine again until next year.

Iron Man

Motive Studio was formed in 2015 by Jade Raymond, who in the meantime managed to leave the team and build Haven Studios, now under Sony. In that short time, her former colleagues managed to earn a very respectable reputation. Motive Studio has become a bit of a symbol of EA’s new policy, which after the fiasco with games like Anthem and, conversely, the success of Jedi: Fallen Order, stopped pushing its teams to create endless multiplayer titles with microtransactions. The result is not only the successful efforts of Motive Studios such as Star Wars Squadrons and the famous remake of Dead Space. The upcoming Iron Man should be included among them.

Little is known about the game itself. Unlike Camouflaj’s Iron Man VR, it’s supposed to be a third-person action, as we’re used to in most superhero games. The project is led by former Eidos-Montreal employee Olivier Proulx. He can rely on his rich experience from the creation of the excellent Guradians of the Galaxy, for which he held the role of producer.

At Motive, with most of the team focused on finishing Dead Space, the game’s development is only just beginning. As with the other games on this list, Iron Man is supposed to feature an origin story and its own version of Tony Stark.

Captain America and Black Panther

• Developer: Skydance New Media
• Publisher: Skydance Media
• Portfolio: –
• Date of publication: ?

The confirmed game featuring Black Panther and Captain America is the work of the Skydance team led by game industry veteran Amy Hennig. Here, fans are fixated primarily as the lead author of the original Uncharted trilogy. Before that, Hennig worked on the forgotten vampire series Legacy of Kain.

Since the release of Uncharted 3 in 2011, the experienced developer has been accompanied by one inconvenience after another. She originally led the development of Uncharted 4, but the studio eventually decided to give preference to a different concept, and The Last of Us author Neil Druckmann stood at the helm of the project in her place. Hennig left for Visceral Games when the publisher decided to cut the upcoming Star Wars game inspired by the Uncharted series with the entire studio. Since then, Hennig has been working in the Skydance New Media team, where, in addition to the new Marvel movie, he is once again preparing his own Star Wars. Hopefully it will work out this time – the author has been waiting for her next big game for twelve years.

Skydance’s Marvel-licensed game doesn’t have a title yet, but we do know it will be set in World War II. In them, Black Panther Azzuri (T’Challa’s grandfather from the movies) joins forces with rookie Steve Rogers aka Captain America. The pair of superheroes will be complemented by the special forces soldier Gabriel Jones and the Wakandan spy Nanali.

Unlike Gotham Knights or Suicide Squad, it will be a purely single-player experience, perhaps more in the style of Guardians of the Galaxy. After all, Hennig already sought a similar type of game when she worked with Visceral Games on Star Wars for EA. The promo image invites you to set in Paris during the Second World War and visit Wakanda.

We learned that Skydance New Media was working on a Marvel movie in October 2021, a short promo followed a year later. Since this type of game usually has a development cycle of four to five years, we will probably have to wait a long time for the game.