Name: Superman
Genre: Action

No Superman video game is on the horizon at the moment, and one reason as to why may be that designing the character for a AAA, feature-length title would be difficult considering how overpowered Kal-El tends to be in a lot of DC media and how that would be tough to balance satisfyingly in a game. Interestingly, a recently released sneak peek clip of James Gunn’s Superman is already polarizing audiences in a way that could actually be exploited brilliantly in a video game.

In this clip, Superman is badly injured and shouts in response to a painful magnification of yellow sun rays rapidly healing him. It’s presently unclear who or what has battered Superman badly enough to cause “fourteen fractured bones; damage to bladder, kidney, large intestine, lungs,” but if this Superman can take a beating and has physical trauma to show for it there is a long leash that video games can wield in designing the character’s gameplay.

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By Cameron Swan

The Superman Movie’s Sneak Peek Holds the Key to Making Clark Kent Endearing

In the sneak peek’s five-minute glimpse of the character, Superman is shown to be much more physically vulnerable and expressive of feeling pain than in many other iterations. It’s possible that the damage done to Superman was during a bout of kryptonite sickness weakening him, in which case it wouldn’t be all too surprising that he would sustain broken bones and be bloodied to the point of needing Krypto to drag his incapacitated body.

However, the notion of Superman being so powerful that his character is tired on paper might be dashed immediately if a particularly strong foe could injure Superman to this degree without wielding kryptonite.

To be fair, it’s seemingly not the kaiju monster Superman battles that did this much damage to him as his costume presumably bears a dirtied or charred appearance thereafter, whereas his costume looks pristine when he’s brought to the Fortress of Solitude. Regardless, the fact that Superman is not only capable of having bones broken but is also receptive to pain when those same bones are being mended gives the character just the right amount of vulnerability needed to make a video game iteration of Superman sympathetic and compelling.

A Superman Game Shouldn’t Be Afraid of Bloodying the Smallville Orphan

It might be possible for a video game to depict Superman as incorruptibly stoic without any physical pain endured aside from when he’s confronted by remnant chunks of his home world that have made their way to Earth as he did. And, of course, there have been dozens of Superman games that have been able to tackle the Kryptonian in their own ways.

That said, it’d likely be easier for games to design Superman if he’s actually taking beatings and can be seriously hurt rather than there needing to be kryptonite around in every combat encounter or giving Metropolis a health bar. Plus, Superman can hopefully allow would-be Superman game developers to feel inspired by this choice instead of potentially feeling restricted or hindered by it.

Realism, even by the stretch of imagination that realism conforms to in science fiction, certainly doesn’t need to have a place in video games, let alone a superhero game, but it would be important that a new Superman game doesn’t get carried away with bludgeoning Clark Kent. If it can be rationalized and connected to the character’s lore, such as experiencing intense discomfort as his body repairs itself while basking in the yellow sun’s magnification in Superman, then what a studio elects to hurl at Superman in order to have players be cautious or mindful of his health should be on the table.

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