Marvel’s Wolverine Is Opening The Door For My Favorite Hero To Get His Own Game Next

Insomniac’s Marvel Universe is due to get bigger with the launch of Marvel’s Wolverine, taking the series – which has only consisted of Marvel’s Spider-Man games so far – outside of New York with a cast of new characters pulled from the comics. While the Marvel’s Spider-Man games have been no stranger to some more mature themes, Marvel’s Wolverine seems to be pushing this further with the hiring of Spec Ops: The Line writer Walt D. Williams to pen a story far darker than the T-rated titles that came before it, and because of this, I feel it’s time for Marvel to turn its attention to one of my favorite heroes from the grittier side of the Marvel Universe who has been largely overlooked in gaming: Daredevil.

Daredevil is undoubtedly one of my favorite street-level heroes in the Marvel Universe – I’ve even cosplayed as him on a few occasions – largely in part due to how he is a complex character who is built of contradictions. Matt Murdock is a defense lawyer by day, but a vigilante by night, and is a practicing Catholic who dons the guise of a devil to take on his foes. While there have been some lighter elements to Daredevil, the character has largely become part of more mature story arcs that deal less with cosmic beings like other Marvel heroes and more with helping his neighborhood, whether it’s by protecting the vulnerable through the law through his legal practice with Foggy Nelson, to taking on their oppressors as his masked alter-ego.

An Early 2000s Daredevil Game Was Unceremoniously Canceled

Daredevil may have appeared in many team-up titles, such as the Marvel Ultimate Alliance series, but outside of a Game Boy Advance side-scrolling beat-’em-up tie-in for the 2003 Daredevil movie, he hasn’t had the chance to headline his own title. A third-person beat ‘em up game, Daredevil: The Man Without Fear,was in the works at 5,000 Ft. Studios for the PS2, Xbox, and PC that would have loosely followed Frank Miller and Lynn Varley’s Elektra Lives Again comic run, with Fisk being assassinated and the gangs of New York fighting for territory. I remember seeing print ads for it in comics in the early-to-mid 2000s, around the time of the first Marvel superhero movie boom, indicating that it was at least close to completion, but unfortunately, the game was unceremoniously canceled and seemed to disappear until a prototype build surfaced last year.

Daredevil Would Be Extremely Well Suited To Gaming

All Of Daredevil’s Abilities Translate Well To Gameplay

I am surprised that in the twenty years since Daredevil: The Man Without Fear‘s development ended, Marvel hasn’t explored the potential Daredevil has as the lead of his own game, especially with how well his powers adapt to gameplay. Daredevil: The Man Without Fear showed the character’s radar senses working like a kind of Batman: Arkham Detective Mode to track opponents, objectives, and more, while Daredevil can easily jump across the city with the agility seen in some of Insomniac’s other titles, such as Marvel’s Spider-Man,Sunset Overdrive, or even the leaked footage from Marvel’s Wolverine, making him a natural fit for the world Insomniac is building.

The trailer for Daredevil: The Man Without Fear even showed Daredevil’s parkour incorporating grinding on railings like something out of a Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater game or Sunset Overdrive. While this is fitting for the 2003 version of the character as it was pulled straight out of the Ben Affleck-starring movie, it does make me wonder just what the soles of his boots are made from. As for combat, superhero games have taken a lot from the Batman: Arkham games in this department with its Freeflow combat, and there is a cool Arkham Knight mod by menkimedi that puts Daredevil in the place of Nightwing to show how this combat could work in practice, replacing Nightwing’s Escrima sticks with Daredevil’s billy club, although it would be great to factor in more of boxing background the character is known for in his own game to truly make it feel separate.

Matt Murdock’s day job as an attorney could also set it apart from other superhero titles in a big way, taking from the non-superhero sections of the Marvel’s Spider-Man games – say what you will about them, but I felt they did serve their part in the wider story and I quite liked seeing the world of superheroes from a different perspective – to investigate situations to build a legal case, or even using an L.A. Noire-esque interview sequence in which he could use his heightened senses to determine who is telling the truth before springing into action as Daredevil. With such mechanics, the decisions made as Matt Murdock could carry more weight, as getting a case wrong could see witnesses being put in danger or criminals being set free, setting up additional side missions for Daredevil to sort out.

Plenty Is Already Falling Into Place For Daredevil To Appear In Insomniac’s Universe

The Nelson And Murdock Legal Practice Appears In Marvel’s Spider-Man

Daredevil – or more accurately, Matt Murdock – has been teased several times since the first Marvel’s Spider-Man game, in which Peter Parker had a business card for Nelson and Murdock: Attorneys at Law in one of his many backpack collectibles. Upon opening this, Peter recalled the time a blind man gave him it and offered Spider-Man some help, wondering how a blind man knew he was Spider-Man in the first place. Players could also visit the exterior of the Nelson & Murdock law firm in Hell’s Kitchen, with its plaque displayed prominently by the entrance.

Since then, one of Daredevil’s major villain groups, The Hand, also appears to have been teased through an Easter Egg in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, and the Insomniac leaks have revealed that the ninja cult will be appearing in Marvel’s Wolverine. This makes sense as Wolverine has a long history with The Hand in the comics, from his time fighting them in Japan in the acclaimed 1980s Wolverine comic run by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller, to the mutant even being brainwashed and serving as one of the group’s assassins at one point in Enemy of the State. With The Hand existing in Insomniac’s Marvel Universe, it only feels like a matter of time before Daredevil appears, perhaps alongside the likes of Elektra or his former mentor Stick.

There’s also a question of what will happen when Wilson Fisk gets out of prison. The Kingpin of Crime was apprehended in Marvel’s Spider-Man‘s opening moments, but has clearly been plotting during his time in the R.A.F.T., as shown in Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales. While Fisk did start out as a Spider-Man villain in the comics, over time, he has become more synonymous with Daredevil, appearing as the main antagonist in both the 2003 movie and the more recent streaming series, so a Daredevil game could certainly focus on the fallout of his release, potentially in a similar way to the canceled Daredevil: The Man Without Fear game with different gangs having fought to gain territory over the years, and how Fisk’s return could shake things up.

The Character’s Popularity May See Another Resurgence With The Launch Of Daredevil: Born Again

Daredevil has always had a fanbase as a character, but this has certainly grown in recent years. While the 2003 Ben Affleck-led Daredevil movie was largely criticized at the time – I’d argue that the Director’s Cut was an improvement, but there was still a lot it got wrong, and some of its goofier moments certainly felt out of place, even more so when placed alongside a dark mystery about the murder of a sex worker – the character’s popularity seemed to increase significantly with the launch of the far superior TV-MA Daredevil show on Netflix, which got to explore both sides of the Matt Murdock character in far greater depth, along with the likes of Foggy Nelson and Karen Page.

The fan backlash to Netflix’s cancelation of the show, and outcry from rumors that likely led to the push to redo Disney+’s revival, Daredevil: Born Again, to bring it more in-line with the original after already filming four episodes, shows that there’s certainly enough of an audience out there for a game. Depending on how Daredevil: Born Again is received when it launches next year, there could be yet another spike in popularity, and if the show continues for more seasons, Insomniac could strike while it’s still “on air” – or whatever the equivalent is in the streaming space – and capitalize on this property.

Unfortunately, while many games were revealed in the Insomniac leaks, from a canceled live-service multiplayer title, Spider-Man: The Great Web, to an X-Men follow-up to Marvel’s Wolverine, Daredevil wasn’t among them. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2‘s Senior Creative Director, Bryan Intihar, did previously tease the character on a few occasions though, even ending PlayStation‘s listening party in which he and the game’s composer John Paesano discussed several tracks from the game’s soundtrack with an abrupt “Where is Daredevil?” so I feel it’s still inevitable that the character will appear in some capacity.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2‘s upcoming DLC – which was leaked through the game’s official New Game Plus patch, not the Insomniac leaks – suggests it will be dealing with Beetle as a main villain, and could be tied to Tombstone as it is the Janice Lincoln version of the character, who is Tombstone’s daughter. Therefore, there’s a possibility that a slightly more grounded storyline like this – rather than the symbiote storyline that looks to be continuing at some point with Cletus Kasady’s inevitable Carnage transformation – would be a good way to introduce The Man Without Fear in Insomniac’s Marvel Universe as he steps in to assist the web-heads, even if I would be a bit disappointed that Daredevil is reduced to a supporting role in gaming yet again.

Sources: menkimedi/Nexus Mods, PlayStation/YouTube