Ouch.
But I agree lol.
Man I love Injustice so... Ugh. I guess it could still be elseworlds but still.
James Gunn comments on how new DC games will fit in shared universe
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Ouch.
But I agree lol.
Man I love Injustice so... Ugh. I guess it could still be elseworlds but still.
I rather they be their own thing unrelated to the movies, like previous batman games and spiderman
Even as someone who loves the Guardians movies……you aren't wrong.
Video games take a long time to make and a lot of people may watch the movies/TV shows but not be interested in the games. It doesn't seem like a good idea to need to tie games into the DCU by default. Either the stories in the games won't matter since most people won't experience them, we will get cheap tie ins or we will get 'Elseworld' games (preferable). I like DC but I don't want a game's storyline to be hampered because something may appear in a DCU movie/series eventually.
I don't really buy his answer TBH. That feels like something he might be telling his boss or producers or whatever to get them to go along with the new vision of DCU but he may not actually believe unless he is talking about a mobile game or something of that scope.
I don't really buy his answer TBH. That feels like something he might be telling his boss or producers or whatever to get them to go along with the new vision of DCU but he may not actually believe unless he is talking about a mobile game or something of that scope.
I agree that this is a pretty ambitious plan that doesn't seem to jive with AAA game development right now. But, I gotta say, I wouldn't be averse to smaller scale games, rather than big cinematic epics. To this day my favorite Superhero game is "Marvel Ultimate Alliance" and, while I think it would have been considered a pretty big production in its time, its absolutely nothing compared to the cinematic behemoths we see today.
The video games industry is bigger than the film industry right now in terms of revenue. It makes sense to try and tie your cinematic universe to the medium to build that same kind of FOMO that made "Avengers: Endgame" the highest grossing movie of all time. Theoretically, it could pay absolute dividends by bringing in those people who aren't normally into video games but get tied up in these huge universes. But I just don't know if that really jives with the reality of game development.
Smaller scale games are the only way he'll even have a chance of this coming to fruition. So, I agree. Even then, good luck aligning those stars with any sort of regularity.
he better hope the movies are successful cos you don't wanna be making games 5 years in advance based on movies people end up not liking... it sounds like games will get scraps of IP and won't touch any iconic stories they want to do films from - I'm not sure Krypto between Superman and Supergirl movies as a stop gap filler really speaks to having much respect for gaming. Better the games are all Elseworlds than this, not to mention the nightmare of trying to get actors in to do voice and mo cap for big AAA games etc... It's a fun idea but basically ignores the reality of game dev - ie: is the Monolith Wonder Woman game going to be refurbished to fit the Paradise Lost Themyscira?
This is just a stupid idea and comes from someone who clearly has no clue about modern AAA game production; like how can anyone think bringing tie-in games back is a good fucking idea?
As a huge Rocksteady fan, I just feel sad that they will be stuck with this stupid experiment that is going to fail; maybe this is why the leads left. Hopefully, at least, the DC execs won't waste the time of other external studios with this.
As a huge Rocksteady fan, I just feel sad that they will be stuck with this stupid experiment that is going to fail; maybe this is why the leads left. Hopefully, at least, the DC execs won't waste the time of other external studios with this.
Are people being purposely obtuse? From believing we're only get scraps like Krypto because he used it as an example ot thinking this is an impossible task due to the more unpredictable nature of game development when Star Wars has been doing this for the past decade.
Don't overthink this. All he's saying they want to make in-universe games that aren't direct adaptions of the movies, like Jedi Fallen Order, and won't be hamstrung by movie release dates.
Don't overthink this. All he's saying they want to make in-universe games that aren't direct adaptions of the movies, like Jedi Fallen Order, and won't be hamstrung by movie release dates.
I don't believe a similar comparison can be drawn. I don't think there's many "Hero" characters in Star Wars TV that people want to actively play as and being in that Universe is more than enough.
The core drive of Superheroes is the Superheroes themselves, whats the analogy for Fallen Order in DC? Playing a random kryptonian no one cares about? that's not enough frankly.
If the point of the games as Gunn said is to connect Movies together then we're absolutely going to be getting scraps because the big characters are going to be saved for screen. You will never get an Arkham Trilogy in a world where they exist along side movies.
You can still get a Superman game, it just might not introduce a villain or something that is planned in the near future.
Like if Superman 2's villain will be Brainiac, maybe the game will use Lex Luther, who may have been the villain of Superman 1, and other smaller villains like Arkham did. Doesn't mean he can't appear in it, but I wouldn't expect him to be the main threat before he is in the movie.
In that sense, yeah, I guess we will be getting scraps.
But in the sense that we'll only be getting games about Krypto instead of Superman and so on, then no, that's ridiculous. If there's no Superman game, it's not because of that.
I know the tie in game in-between Superman and Supergirl is just off-hand example from him, but it is a ludicrious one. Both from a production and lore standpoint.
This just doesn't seem feasible at all in the next five years. No one knows anything about these characters yet.
This just doesn't seem feasible at all in the next five years. No one knows anything about these characters yet.
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The problem is that the stakes for these games will be relatively low if it is someone like Superman or Batman. You'll never get the risky choice of killing the Joker in a DCU game because they'd leave something like that for the big screen. Worrying about someone like Lois or Jimmy possibly dying at the hands of a super villain would never happen in one of these games.
Nothing of significance can happen when it's involving a major character, and who's going to want to play as one of the lesser known people?
You can introduce characters who can just die them if you must. If the character is well written, and they build the relationship between them and the main hero, it can still be meaningful.
A character can still have development and interesting plots and gameplay, without significantly changing him or the world around him. But I guess that depends on what you see as significant.
Obviously there's less freedom, and personally, I'd prefer them not being part of the movie universe for that freedom, but I disagree you can't do it this way in a decent way.
You can do anything in a decent way, but he's absolutely setting the whole house of cards up to fail.
Yeah, Star Wars has been doing this forever, I don't see any issues with it.
If the game idea is good but can't fit into the continuity it'll just be an Elseworlds and still come out. Otherwise, because the continuity takes place after all the origin stories, you can just have a Superman or Batman game set prior to the initial movie featuring a past adventure but with the movie actors doing the voices. Or maybe there's a character that fits well with the games but they don't have movie plans for so they loosely connect it to the movie continuity and then bring the character in later on if the game is successful. Superheroes get dozens of comic stories a year that are all technically in the same continuity but only connect in broad strokes (like, Batman is sometimes starring in Batman, Justice League, Batman and Superman, Detective Comics, and being a side character in Robin/Batgirl/Nightwing books without there being much for continuity snarling).
Like, we're getting Damian first, they can easily do a Batman Year One game or something similar and have it be fine. It would just be a matter of casting the side characters so that if they're used again in the future it's the same person.
I actually dig the Guardians flicks too, I just had to get these jokes off.
As unpredictable as game development can be, I think an approach can be taken to make scheduling less of an issue.
If a Superman game set in the DCEU came out around say, 2017, set just after or before Man Of Steel, I think that would've worked to encourage engagement with the IP like a movie tie in would, while not being too tied to the plot points or marketing of the movies releasing that year.
Certainly a very ambitious idea but I think that's what DC needs more of.
If a Superman game set in the DCEU came out around say, 2017, set just after or before Man Of Steel, I think that would've worked to encourage engagement with the IP like a movie tie in would, while not being too tied to the plot points or marketing of the movies releasing that year.
Certainly a very ambitious idea but I think that's what DC needs more of.
Maybe I'm crazy, but that direct was for shareholders. Gunn has no power, answers to Zaslav who's continuing to gut everything WB. I don't expect anything good to come out of the company for a few years. I don't envy the position Gunn has been placed into. When it all comes crumbling down Gunn will be the scapegoat. They need to chapek Zaslav.
This whole discourse centers around the assumption that Gunn wants to rush out games in accordance to movies for Marvel like symmetry and they're no room for series set outside that universe. He's said quite the opposite and everyone is really jumping the gun.
It doesn't matter much, I still thinks it's unnecessarily limiting to begin with. I don't want any game having to worry about the DCU canon period, especially with the confirmation that you basically wouldn't get the more prominent heroes that are the leads in movies given his Krypto example. Not saying a "Krypto game" as Gunn put it is inherently bad, but the devs should do something like that because they want to, and not because their hands are tied in terms of what they have access to without worrying about the canon
I don't think canon games should be a problem provided that they don't need to release in a particular sequence or time frame with the movies. If so, I think it would have almost the same problem as making direct tie ins with specific movies.
Hey, it worked for Enter the Matrix, so why not!
What Gunn describes feels more akin to Enter the Matrix, where you get a game that is specifically tied into the continuity of a movie, which sounds well... less than great.
It didn't work for Enter the Matrix
What Star Wars has been doing is different though. Gunn is talking in the interview about a game that specifically ties into big movies (and tv shows). Star Wars games have never done that, unless it was a direct adaptation of the movie. Like, you can claim Jedi Survivor, Jedi Knight, KotOR, etc. are canon (or were canon, pre-Disney takeover), but in the end it doesn't actually matter because likely nothing of what happens in those games will ever directly tie into a movie besides tiny easter eggs like some item from a level in Battlefront 2 showing up in the background of The Last Jedi or Rakata being mentioned in Andor.
What Gunn describes feels more akin to Enter the Matrix, where you get a game that is specifically tied into the continuity of a movie, which sounds well... less than great.
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I mean…. being a studio owned by WB Games or being contracted by them means that that you're only ever allowed to do what the top brass agrees on. Usually that entails working only on WB IP. I doubt this situation is really any different.
I don't think moving it further away from the movie continuity would have made it a better game.
True, it's just the only example that came to my mind when reading the quote haha
Using games to fill in backstory is an ok idea - though it'll likely isolate a large part of your movie audience it'll also bring in a section that didn't want to see the movies but if they like the game...
But hitting a year gap with anything approaching a AAA game is going to be difficult enough. They'll have to be in production prior to the movie starting filming, and if you have two or three movies planned over a couple year span, that means having multiple games in the oven? Logistical nightmare.
