My Dream Superhero Game

While playing Batman: Arkham Knight I realised something. I enjoyed driving around, solving the various side missions and locking up random villains in GCPD more than I did the actual mainline story. This is an odd one for me because usually it’s the other way round. And looking at other people’s opinions, the side stuff has gotten less than stellar remarks, with repetitive gameplay cited as a major reason for this. Something I can’t necessarily argue with.

Azrael was involved in one of the Arkham Knight side missions.
Azrael was involved in one of the Arkham Knight side missions.

But I think the side missions set something off in my brain, it made me think about what I want from my superhero experiences. One where the world evolves as you play. A bit of a stretch seeing as everything in Arkham Knight is set in stone, but it made me wonder what if it wasn’t? What if the developers were constantly adding new content?

Imagine you get your update, you’re driving around in your batmobile and all of a sudden you’re alerted to Killer Croc causing a disturbance at ACE Chemicals or Deadshot hanging around by the bat signal trying to get your attention.

There have obviously been open world superhero games in the past, Spiderman 2 for example did a great job at recreating a world for you to swing around in and thwart criminals, but it was very basic. This is a new generation that could use some new ambition.

Spiderman 2 was great at the time.
Spiderman 2 was great at the time.

I want a living, breathing world with fresh surprises. As much as I loved Arkham Knight, it’s a very “videogamey” world. During the first cut scene it’s explained why all the civilians have moved out of the city, which is the way they deal with Batman potentially running over and murdering civilians. Admittedly this is probably the only way they could’ve dealt with it now Batman is finally in control of his four wheeled tank, but it did feel very convenient.

Maybe then Batman isn’t the best character to put in this potential superhero epic. Perhaps it could be someone who’s not always on the path of good and righteous, a more of an anti-hero archetype. A character where you can choose whether to be good or evil. Or maybe shades of grey.

In the end, I just want to feel like a superhero. Like I’m protecting the city from threats on a constant basis. When Arkham Knight is 100% complete there won’t be any reason to return other than the rare DLC occurrence. I don’t want that. Like how Destiny has this epic ten year plan. Love it or hate it, it has ambition and will be a continuing, developing platform unto itself. Why not do that for the superhero genre?

I'll take any excuse to post this gif.
I’ll take any excuse to post this gif.

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