Some people might feel inclined to argue that superhero media has never been more mainstream than it is now. For decades ,there's been plenty of movies and shows that let superheroes escape the comic panel, but the Marvel Cinematic Universe and similar projects that followed it showed just how popular superheroes are right now. On top of everything else, superheroes are staking a claim in video games with high-profile titles like Marvel's Spider-Man, Marvel's Avengers, and brand deals like those in Fortnite. Epic Games' blockbuster battle royale Fortnite has gotten all kinds of superhero cameos, from a Thanos-themed game mode to skins for characters like Wolverine and Deadpool.
According to a fresh set of leaks, Fortnite's next superhero guest is Ghost Rider. This continues the tradition of Marvel having close ties with Fortnite, although this hero is a bit of a deeper cut. Although Ghost Rider has been around for years, he hasn't gotten as much media attention outside comics as his peers.. Now that superhero games are coming back to the forefront, maybe it's time someone pay respects by Ghost Rider by giving him a game of his own.
Power of the Ghost Rider
As is often the case with superheroes, there's actually a lot of incarnations of Ghost Rider. However, there's plenty of consistencies that tie the characters together in the mold of a spirit of vengeance and presenting a model that's perfectly approachable for a video game. The Ghost Rider is infamous for commanding blasts of hellfire to punish evildoers and wielding chains as weapons. Naturally, there's also the iconic motorcycle and the Penance Stare, reflecting the pain a person has caused back on them. These characteristics all put together a pretty clear image of what a Ghost Rider game might be like: an intense action-adventure game with intense combo-focused combat, with vehicle sequences peppered in.
Admittedly Ghost Rider's greatest strength is perhaps his greatest weakness as far as a game is concerned. It's extremely hard to harm or kill Ghost Rider, since many mundane weapons are useless against him. Some accounts say that Ghost Riders are truly immortal. Every player enjoys turning on God Mode once in a while in a game, but of course, invincibility and immortality aren't conducive to a challenging game. There would need to be some kind of narrative justification for how Ghost Rider can be challenged by enemies, whether they're other supernatural beings or mortals who've acquired some unnatural power for themselves.
A New Kind of Superhero Game
Narrative challenges aside, a Ghost Rider game would be really worth seeing specifically because it's something different for the superhero genre. Games like the aforementioned Marvel titles involve bright, upstanding characters with generally altruistic motivations. While they might set themselves apart with very different genres and narratives, there's a similar philosophy there. A Ghost Rider game can tell a darker superhero narrative. These spirits of vengeance are often written with more of an antihero angle to them, making for a new way to examine the Marvel universe.
A Ghost Rider game might open the doors to all kinds of other superhero games. Marvel alone has a huge range of heroes, inspired by everything from science fiction to myths to magic. All these different kinds of heroes deserve to be explored in their own ways. After all, that's part of why the Marvel Cinematic Universe is such a success. It embraces all the different aesthetics, tones, and personalities of dozens of Marvel heroes and manages to weave them together. Marvel doesn't necessarily have to start a Marvel Game Universe, as exciting as that would be, but it should acknowledge more kinds of superheroes in licensed games. Ghost Rider is just one rich possibility among many.
Fortnite is available on Switch, PS4, PC, and Xbox One.