When EA's Iron Man game was announced, my excitement piqued. Then it plummeted, wobbled, rose again tentatively, stumbled, and finally petered out, settling into an uncertain, brow-furrowed shrug. It was an exciting five seconds, let me tell you.
And while it's easy to get excited about the ideas in our own heads, there's not a lot to be excited about right now when EA and Motive's announcement basically comes down to "here's a thing that'll exist at some point". Maybe the Iron Man game will be amazing – I certainly hope it is – or maybe it'll be a mobile match-three affair, there's no way of knowing this early on. That being said, it does make me think about Tony Stark's gaming history, and a fresh opportunity to capitalize on a quality missing from the Armored Avenger's repertoire to this point – invention and customization.
A history of violence
Iron Man is just one of "several" Marvel games in development with EA
Sure, there's no shortage of mech suits, power armor, or Iron Man-like gameplay to be found in gaming (the excellent jetpack DLC for Just Cause 3 springs to mind). But Tony Stark himself has been a rare occurrence in the Triple-A sector, at least when you consider what a complete money factory the character has been over the last decade and a half for movies.
Since Robert Downey Jr made the MCU a household name in 2008, Tony's only had the starring role in three big games: a couple of uninspired tie-ins for Iron Man 1 and 2, and the passable proof-of-concept that was Iron Man VR. Iron Man has otherwise been part of an ensemble cast in the likes of the Lego series, Marvel's Avengers, and Marvel vs Capcom – games which, even when they're good, are so preoccupied with their many moving parts, they fail to let individual characters breathe.
Consequently, Tony Stark can often feel a bit… one note. You fly around, you shoot lasers, sometimes you shoot a bigger laser, or even a rocket if you're feeling particularly saucy. And the character's Cold War origins mean all his biggest villains tend to be other mech suits covered in flags that make Americans nervous. It's all a bit repetitive, frankly.
Mech it yourself
So with that in mind, how do you make Tony Stark properly fun, especially in the context of a (deep breath) "single-player, third-person, action-adventure (with) an original narrative that taps into the rich history of Iron Man, channeling the complexity, charisma, and creative genius of Tony Stark, and enabling players to feel what it’s like to truly play as Iron Man," to quote EA and Motive directly.
There are two elements from that statement that stick out: "creative genius", and "what it’s like to truly play as Iron Man". Because Tony Stark isn't just a superhero, and Iron Man is not just a costume. Anybody who's watched the films or read the comics knows that Tony Stark has dozens of different robot suits clogging his basement, and that's not just so he has a variety of color schemes to match changing fashions. They're responses to, and anticipations of, the threats that Iron Man deals with, all specifically designed to counter specific perils and conquer certain challenges.
Take the iconic Hulkbuster suit, for example. The standard red-and-gold armor wouldn't hold up in a fight against several tons of radiation-saturated road rage, so Stark Industries built a souped-up suit that's designed to counter the Hulk's physicality and brute strength. It's not a flex or an aesthetic statement, it's a necessity for a very specific situation.
And it goes far deeper than that – in Tony's wardrobe there's stealth armor, spacefaring armor, undersea armor, adaptive armor, armor designed specifically for taking out certain foes. There was even an early model with rocket skates, and one with a nose! Necessity is the mother of invention, and Tony Stark is an inventor at heart – so any proper adaptation of the Golden Avenger, especially one selling itself as "a love letter to a legendary hero in the form of the ultimate Iron Man video game", needs to build on that as much as flying and repulsor beams.
A perfectly tailored suit
Getting that aspect right in gameplay means customization. I'll be blunt: if I'm using the same armor at the end of the game that I had at the beginning, I'll be pretty disappointed. The perfect approach, for me at least, would be something similar to the custom spaceships in Elite: Dangerous, No Man's Sky and what we've seen from Starfield ship customization – something that treats Iron Man armor like a vehicle, with its power, weapons, technology and speed all to be considered and balanced. It would be like a more nuanced version of Insomniac's Spider-Man suit focus, the focus on powers and new abilities, but really ramped up to eleven. It's not an outrageous request – it's a fundamental part of the character of Tony Stark.
If I know a specific threat is coming, I should be able to modify my suits to better prepare for it. Not just a skill tree, not just character skins, but swapping out weapons, exchanging components and balancing stats, even min-maxing if I feel like it. The Hulkbuster itself should be something I can organically build up to and wear in any mission – even if it's not the right moment for it!
God bless it, Marvel's Avengers really tried to provide the experience with its whole focus on gear, but it ultimately fell down because Iron Man – and all the other heroes – still basically play the same way no matter what you stick on them. It's just different flavours of repulsor ray and a few stat changes – not meaningful customization. Even if the developers don't want the headache of thinking about weirder armors like Extremis, there's still a lot you can do with the idea of customization – and EA is a company that absolutely has the resources to pull it off, if they're willing to.
After rewatching the MCU, GamesRadar+ News Editor, Ali Jones, came up with a whole theory about Tony Stark tweaking his suits in every film to specifically address flaws or failings that threatened him in previous films (no, he doesn't get out much). True theory or not, the MCU did often get that aspect of the character right, and it's a pretty good example of what I want to see – a game where I can remember, respond and reinvent my suits into whatever I think I can need. If EA and Motive can work towards that lofty goal, I'm more than willing to be optimistic again.
Fancy more forthcoming superhero stories? Take a look at our upcoming Marvel games list.
