It’s Been Four Years, Give Black Panther a Video Game
The Marvel Gamerverse only has one released game under its belt, but is already showing signs of promise. Insomniac’s Spider-Man was one of the best games of 2018 and the current console generation and was a massive hit; I’m sure the sequel will be announced to great applause at the eventual PS5 reveal. In September, the Avengers will get a live co-op game bringing together countless heroes to fight continuous threats. But apart from that, there are currently no other games on the docket. (That we know of, as of today.)
To that end, I have to ask: can I please finally get a fucking Black Panther game?
This past weekend marked the two-year anniversary of the Black Panther movie, a film that was nothing short of a massive hit for the already way-too-powerful Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s the second-highest grossing film of 2018 after pseudo-sequel Avengers: Infinity War, the highest grossing solo MCU movie, and the first superhero film to get a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars (that, like Joker and this year’s recent Oscars, it would not win). He has the best musical theme for a superhero in the 2010s, taking top spot behind Miles Morales and Wonder Woman.
You would think that with all of those honors placed among it, Marvel woud do what it’s done with Deadpool and Spider-Man and just push T’Challa and his Wakandan entourage to an obnoxious degree. They certainly became aware of how much of a hit that first film was to an extent, adding T’Challa and his supporting cast to the marketing for Infinity War, despite their collective screentime not being more than maybe 10 minutes, tops.
But beyond having the fifth and final season of the Avengers Assemble cartoon from his POV, his media presence has been near nonexistent. In the comics, he hasn’t ever gotten a chance to headline a yearly Marvel event like Thor, and his supporting cast isn’t Spider-Man or X-Men levels of big where the various books in his orbit can all have a mini-event of their own that takes up those characters’ lives. His sequel film isn’t set to be out until 2022. Sure, he’s in Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 and Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite, but he’s more like a guest star in both. (In the latter’s case, he’s literally DLC.) It’s the reverse Inhumans problem, where Marvel expected people to turn up for those mutated costumed weirdos over the X-Men pre-merger, which they didn’t.
As much as I love my superhero games like Spider-Man or Arkham, they’re also takes on characters who I’d be fine with taking a back seat in games for a while. (No, this doesn’t mean I don’t wanna play as Miles Morales in Spider-Man 2 or whatever’s going on with WB Montreal’s Court of Owls game, don’t even start.) But at the same time, it feels like we’ve wrung every drop possible out of Batman, the Justice League, Avengers, and Spider-Man. And just as DC needs to quit screwing around and let someone like Wonder Woman or their many Green Lanterns take center stage, so too does Marvel and T’Challa. Yeah, he’ll probably be in that Avengers game come September, but I also don’t think it’s out of the question to want to be him in a guided experience rather than a service game.
Superhero games have gotten better lately about making the player feel like they’re inhabiting these iconic roles completely rather just wielding the powers. A game like Netherrealm’s Injustice makes you feel like a DC superhero through various ways, either by their move set, customizing their outfits, or their victory animations. Spider-Man paid attention to the dual lives of Peter Parker and his costumed alter ego. I want a game that figures out how to make that work for T’Challa. He has infinitely more responsibility than most of the other heroes in the Marvel Universe, and a game should be as much about the choices he makes as what his costume can do.
Thus far, Spider-Man and the upcoming Avengers game have some kind of through line in their marketing that is succinct and indicative of the game. The former touted “Be Greater,” subtly indicating the game would be about the struggle of being a better person. Avengers’ is currently “Embrace Your Powers,” using Kamala Khan in particular to promise that good can come out of a horrific event like A-Day. It wouldn’t be hard to find a similar one with Black Panther and the struggle of being a king ending his country’s tradition of isolation and self-preservation.
Another reason to give Panther a game to himself? He can help provide some variety in open world games, which are set primarily on either alien planets or a coast city. (Also Hong Kong, but you get the idea.) Sometimes it’s the actual cities, sometimes their names are changed, but the point remains. When people talk about how Wakanda makes them feel, they more than likely mean how it’s completely realistic while also something out of a sci-fi film. Afrofuturism has never been done before in big budget games, and it would be a marvel to see it on the PS5 or Xbox Series X in its splendor.
If the MCU will continue to be the biggest thing in the universe, then we should at least get some more games from it that aren’t just returning to the same golden geese. I don’t want a Black Panther game because he’s one of my favorite Marvel heroes, I want it because it would be something we’ve never really gotten to see before. There can be long waits between Black Panther sequels, fine, but at least let the characters not sit in stasis while we do so.
