Superman has never had it easy when it comes to video games. Superman 64 is a colossal failure of a game, but it's only the beginning: for as long as video games have existed, the Man of Steel has tried and failed to make an impact. For whatever reason, DC's most powerful hero just doesn't seem to translate well into an interactive medium.
What's worse is that there's no real reason that a proper Superman game couldn't succeed. It'd take some serious work, there's no doubting that, but it just doesn't make sense that a dedicated developer couldn't translate Supes' skills into a video game. If Batman can make a comeback like the Arkham series, why can't Superman?
Unfortunately, that game may have already come and gone. Factor 5, the much-loved developer behind the Star Wars: Rogue Squadron series, was actually working on a Superman game - but, thanks to a publishing deal gone south, fans never got to see what the studio had in store for the Man of Steel.
While the teaser above only offers up a short glance, it's easy to see the sort of scale that Factor 5 was going for. Pitting the Man of Steel up against Doomsday is an easy way to up the ante, but the idea of plowing through an office building and blasting bad guys out of the air sounds fantastic. Plus, given that the game was slated for release on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, there's a good chance that the hardware would have actually been powerful enough to run the game.
However, aside from the short teaser, there's not much left of Factor 5's Superman game. A few batches of screenshots have made their way online over the past several years, but aside from some conceptual renders and character art, there's not much to go on. If Factor 5 had a working prototype in development, it seems to have faded away along with the rest of the project.
Losing a game with such potential is painful enough on its own, but the reason Factor 5's Superman was canceled just makes it even worse. It wasn't due to technical limitations, or artistic differences within the team - no, Factor 5's Superman never saw the light of day because its publisher ran out of cash.
Brash Entertainment was a large, multistudio publisher founded in 2007 - and, at first, it seemed as if Brash was doing well. Big licensing deals with both DC Comics and Lionsgate were the underpinning of a seemingly solid foundation - unfortunately, the rest of Brash's projects were both critical and commercial failures, leading to serious financial troubles. By the time 2008 rolled around, Brash folded.
Sadly, the loss of its publisher was the final blow for Factor 5. Following the hugely disappointing release of the PlayStation 3 exclusive Lair, the studio was already in serious trouble - without any sort of reliable funding, one of the longest-running studios in gaming was shut down in mid-2009.
Would a Superman game have been enough to save Factor 5 from closing? At this point, there's no real way of knowing ... but, had the game actually come through on what the studio was hoping to accomplish, maybe there's a chance that we'd all be playing an updated version of Rogue Squadron by now.
As for Supes himself, it doesn't look like gaming is much of a concern right now: following the mediocre Superman Returns for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, DC seems content to simply focus on its cinematic universe. For the time being, the best way to see the Man of Steel in action will be in theaters: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is set to debut on March 25.
