This 2004 Superhero Game Was So Bad, It Might Have Caused Wonder Woman’s Cancellation

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Wonder Woman reportedly suffered from difficulties throughout its early development. Monolith, the team behind Shadow of Mordor, initially wanted to bring its Nemesis system to the game. But later on, the team pivoted to a more straightforward action superhero game. And then, WB cancelled the project entirely. I can’t help but wonder whether the long shadow of Catwoman‘s failure impacted both Monolith and WB’s decisions about what would’ve been our first major female-led solo superhero game in over 20 years.

Catwoman Was Both a Terrible Superhero Game and a Lackluster Platformer

Image courtesy of Electronic Arts

Growing up as a girl who loved games, I often searched the GameStop shelves for covers that featured female characters. As a big superhero fan, it was natural that I found myself drawn to the 2004 Catwoman game, which was a tie-in to the terrible Halle Berry movie of the same name. This game could have been huge for me and female superhero fans everywhere, but instead it was just… bad.

Catwoman was, as far as my research tells me, the first major solo superhero game with a female protagonist. Since then, games like Gotham Knight have featured segments of gameplay as heroes like Batgirl, but we’ve yet to see another DC or Marvel game with a solo female hero at the helm. In fact, most solo DC games have centered on Batman. So, it’s hardly surprising the first foray into female superhero-led territory would feature a villain from that same universe.

Playing as Catwoman could have been absolute gaming gold. More games need to let us be the villain, and Catwoman’s ambiguous morals could’ve made for interesting gameplay. Alas, Catwoman was a quickly assembled movie tie-in that suffered from similar issues to the film. It also happened to be a platformer with absolutely dreadful camera angles that made some levels nearly impossible to complete.

The game, which earned a dreadful 46 aggregate rating on Metacritic, did earn itself a legacy. But not the one anyone involved in the project, or hoping for more female-led solo superhero stories, would want. It has gone down in history as one of the worst games of its era, and I fear that may be part of why we’ve yet to see another female superhero or villain from DC or Marvel step into the gaming spotlight.

Wonder Woman May Have Suffered from Catwoman‘s Failure

Image courtesy of WB Games and Monolith Studios

The past decade has been huge for games with solid female protagonists. Games like Metroid and Tomb Raider offer longstanding proof that women-led titles can succeed in the gaming market. Yet when I was growing up, many people assumed girls didn’t game. That mentality has shifted somewhat, but it’s grown mostly into a stereotype that girls only play certain types of games. This, along with the assumption that boys and men won’t be interested in games with female main characters, makes an action superhero game with a woman at its helm a tough sell to some people.

Catwoman was, in some ways, a testing ground for the theory that a female-led superhero action game wouldn’t sell. And unfortunately, that game was a failure from pretty much any angle you look at it. Since its release in 2004, we’ve had plenty of new superhero games, but none of the solo titles have starred female heroes. Even following the theatrical success of the 2017 Wonder Woman movie, a game didn’t emerge on any kind of sensible timeline. And I can’t help but wonder how much of that had to do with the infamy of Catwoman.

So many factors go into whether a game ultimately gets made or scrapped. Budgets in gaming are tight these days, and many exciting projects have been cancelled as a result. Yet it’s hard to imagine Catwoman wasn’t at least a subconscious shadow in the room as Monolith struggled to find a winning formula for Wonder Woman. After all, Diana would’ve been our first female superhero action hero in a major DC or Marvel game since Catwoman clawed her way to the “worst games” annals of history.

When WB cancelled Wonder Woman, it was part of a big restructuring. The company wanted to focus on its tentpole IP, the ones it knew were likely to make a profit. Wonder Woman, despite being a big DC superhero title like some of WB’s biggest successes, likely looked like a risk. There had never been a big solo-led Wonder Woman game, and the recent DC attempt, Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, failed. With only Catwoman as a use case for a female-led DC superhero project, it’s not surprising WB wasn’t willing to take the chance. But it’s also a shame.

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