With Marvel Studios set to have another great year in Spider-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Thor movies, and DC Entertainment finally ready to roll out the big guns with the long-awaited Justice League movie, superheroes aren’t going away any time soon. But while caped crusaders rule our big and small screens at the moment, there is one medium they’re yet to conquer: VR.
Obviously big companies like Marvel and DC don’t have too much interest in the small install bases of headsets like the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and PlayStation VR right now, but we have already seen both of them experiment with the tech. Gear VR has several small Avengers experiences, and Rocksteady Games released Batman: Arkham VR [Review: 5/10] onto PSVR late last year. These just scratch the surface of what we want to see from the superhero genre, though.
Some heroes have powers that are ideally suited to VR. While swinging through New York as Spider-Man might make you queasy, and taking on the role of Superman is a little beyond the tech’s capabilities right now, there are some characters that could make for some awesome VR experiences right now. Below, we’ve listed six of them.
Wolverine
Let’s start out with an obvious one. As kids (and, if you’re like me, adults), we’d put cutlery and pencils in between our fingers and pretend we were Wolverine. With position-tracked controls, we could really be him. Things might get more than a little bloody, but we won’t say no to a 90’s animated series-themed Danger Room experience in which you take down mutant-hating Sentinels. We’d have picked Cyclops for this list, but there are already plenty of sight-based shooters for VR.
Beast Boy
Garfield Logan is used to rubbing shoulders with members of DC’s Teen Titans, but we think he’d be brilliantly suited to his own VR game. Beast Boy has the very helpful ability to transform into any animal of his choosing just by thinking about it. Imagine a VR game that combined gameplay elements like stealth, action and racing all by letting you embody the animals you’re imagining. Shifting from a bear to take on brutes to a snake to slip past defense would be a heap of fun.
Dr. Strange
We swear by the By the Hoary Hosts of Hoggoth that a Dr. Strange VR game with Oculus Touch, PlayStation Move, or Vive wands would be one of the coolest experiences you can get inside a headset, as evidenced by his recent movie. Stepping into the fractured dimensions that weave around our reality and conjuring up dynamic spells that transport us to far away places or stop time would be an amazing use of the tech. Strange is all about using his hands to cast magic, and we could do just that in VR.
Green Lantern
With a single thought, Hal Jordan (or anyone else in the Green Lantern Corps) can summon a physical projection of practically anything you can think of, and then use it to his will. You don’t have to be a comic book geek to realize what this could do for VR. Imagine a game that let you create any object, Tilt Brush style, and then bring it into the world to use as a weapon or solve a puzzle. Cast nets to save falling citizens, block attacks by summoning shields and fight back using oversized boxing gloves.
Iron Man
Iron Man is probably the ultimate superhero to put in a VR experience right now, which would no doubt please the tech-loving Tony Stark. One of the first things many of us do when we grab a Touch or Vive wand is imitate the iconic repulsor-shooting stance that we’ve seen in countless movies now. If VR hand-tracking picks up in the next few years, we’ll be begging for an experience that lets us put on the Iron Man suit like never before.
The Question
Let’s close with something a little less obvious. Whether its Vic Sage or Renee Montoya, The Question represents a different side of VR superhero games, acting as much like detectives than they do crime-fighters. With puzzles and escape rooms proving to be popular genres for VR gaming right now, here’s a hero that could combine the best of action and brain teasing for a brilliant experience.
