Warner Bros has allegedly cancelled Superman games twice since 2013

DC owners Warner Bros has allegedly been trying to create open-world Superman games since 2013, leading to two cancelled Superman games. 

Revealed on Twitter by industry insider James Sigfield, Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment has worked on two Superman titles over the six-year period. With the IP’s pitching process opening for developers in 2013, numerous projects have been worked on over the years.

According to Sigfield, one title was going to be an open-world Superman title “in the vein of Spider-Man PS4”. The title would have featured the Man of Steel flying around an open-world Metropolis with various DC villains teaming up the fight Superman.

One game pitched in 2013 was to be an open world Superman game in the vein of Spider-Man PS4. It would feature a massive Metropolis and feature various villains from the DC pantheon… pic.twitter.com/p3vTRP9M2O

— James Sigfield (@Jsig212James) November 10, 2019

The title got cancelled early into its prototype stage. Sigfield gives no reasoning behind this cancellation.

Another Superman title also made it to the prototype stage before it was cancelled by Warner Bros. Tentatively titled Superman: Unborn, the game was planned to be “less open world” in order to limit Superman’s strength.

Allegedly set within the city of Kandor – a Metropolis-like city from Krypton that was shrunk and bottled up by Brainiac before the planet’s explosion – it would have also included numerous villains. Brainiac, Doomsday and more were planned.

Sigfield revealed that the reasoning behind Unborn’s cancellation was due to Warner Bros demanding new games to use the Arkham engine, a heavily modified version of Unreal Engine 3. So far, that’s remained true for the company’s DC output: Injustice 2 also uses Unreal Engine 3.

The game was supposed to be less “open world” so as to limit Superman’s vast array of abilities. This game was to feature foes such as Brainiac, Doomsday, and tons of other mind controlled villains. pic.twitter.com/QBt1r2BGSs

— James Sigfield (@Jsig212James) November 10, 2019

The leak also claims that the cancelled Suicide Squad game was also using this modified Unreal Engine 3 that Arkham Knight used.

While these cancelled Superman games are unfortunate, at least Warner Bros is still trying to create quality DC titles. While, for now, that quality bar is solely resting with the Batman IP, we hope it’ll branch out in the future.