After almost a decade of waiting for another Batman-flavored fighting game, DC Comics and Warner Bros. have finally heard the pleas. Another one has finally been announced, allowing players to put characters like Zatanna and Nightwing against each other once again in a melee brawl. But it’s not another Injustice game or something else from legendary developer NetherRealm Studios; it’s a free-to-play, mobile-first game from another team, instead. It’s a deflating announcement, one that once again sadly encapsulates the sad state of DC video games.
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DCKO, or “Dicko” as it is being sarcastically called, does not look like the most engaging fighting game out there because of what is at its core. It’s a bit presumptuous to judge something like this before it is out, but these types of games are hardly more than time wasters powered by overwhelming microtransactions. Mashing the screen to do combos and pushing down to block always feels terrible and akin to playing a babified version of a more traditional fighting game with oven mitts on. There’s very little nuance or room for depth because it’s not about dexterity. Like Mortal Kombat Mobile, Injustice Mobile, and Marvel Contest of Champions, these are games with razor-thin and grindy mechanics explicitly designed to suck money out of people. The licenses spray painted on top are just there to make all these gross practices slightly more digestible. Their true nature is only hardly obscured.
Marvel Contest of Champions was developed by people who worked on DCKO, too, so there’s already a proven blueprint. This isn’t to say Contest of Champions isn’t successful, though. As of early 2025, it has garnered over 225 million downloads in 10 years. It’s a staggering number, but quality is not dictated by sales or downloads, and it’s impossible to excuse a comic book-themed slot machine — and be excited for another one — just because a ton of people downloaded it.
DC’s Games Have Been in Sorry State for Almost a Decade
This move is all the more frustrating given the context surrounding it. Warner Bros. has been horribly mismanaged, as evidenced by its litany of closed studios, teams that have been encouraged to move away from their strengths, inability to consistently produce games, and titles that have come out unfinished. It’s a company, like many others in the space, that’s been entirely consumed by the delusion of endless growth. This has meant only a few DC games have come out and even fewer of them have been any good, a sentiment led by the endlessly disappointing pair Gotham Knights and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. DC heroes are made for the medium yet can’t seem to flourish inside of it.
This announcement also wasn’t paired with something more people are likely looking forward to: another DC fighting game from NetherRealm. As previously stated, it’s been over nine years since Injustice 2. Its zoner-heavy style and the studio’s lethargic balancing approach meant it was a divisive game, but it is a decent one nonetheless. The long gap after the last game and two back-to-back Mortal Kombat titles mean there’s plenty of pent-up demand for another one, too. Another Injustice is reportedly in development, but it hasn’t been confirmed, and that doesn’t make this DCKO announcement easier to swallow. Failing to couple DCKO with something more substantial reeks of the mistake Blizzard Entertainment made with Diablo Immortal since that mobile offering wasn’t paired with something deeper and more appealing.
Marvel Games Has Been Racking up Wins for Almost a Decade
It’s also hard not to look at what Marvel has been doing in the gaming space both in and out of the fighting genre. Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls is right around the corner and coming from a prestigious fighting game studio. Capcom’s 2024 bundle Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics also provided quite a collection of Marvel’s older hits in and around the genre. And while not official, Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite recently saw a huge mod that completely overhauled and revitalized the PC version of the game. It’s not just Marvel Contest of Champions hogging the spotlight here, so that grubby mobile game doesn’t feel like as much of a spoiler.
These sit alongside other solid to great games in other genres. Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel’s Midnight Suns, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order, Marvel Snap, Marvel Rivals, Marvel’s Iron Man VR, Marvel: Cosmic Invasion, and three Marvel’s Spider-Man games have given Marvel a breadth of games in different genres from a range of different studios over the years. Upcoming titles like Marvel’s Wolverine, Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra, and Electronic Arts’ Iron Man are also in the midst, and while it remains to be seen how they’ll turn out, there’s at least some promise bubbling behind them. Arkane Studio’s Blade game may be in trouble, EA’s Black Panther game was canned, and Marvel’s Avengers was a poorly realized project from a studio not made for that kind of game, but those mishaps are far outnumbered by the stronger titles that have defined Marvel in the gaming space. DC, on the other hand, has mostly been defined by missteps and unrealized potential.
In 2014, executive vice president and head of Marvel Games Jay Ong went to PlayStation and wondered if the two entities could make a game better than Batman: Arkham Asylum after Marvel was disappointed with Activision’s mostly sloppy or mediocre Spider-Man games before that point. It took about four years for that seed to bloom, but that was more or less the start to Marvel’s current gaming empire. It’s a type of success that longer-term thinking, careful planning, and an “obsession with quality” can bring, which is exactly what DC has been missing. As noted by reports and corroborated by reality, the gaming division headed by Warner Bros. has been corrupted by nearsightedness and poor planning at nearly every step of the way. And it’s this kind of haphazard strategy that leads to games like DCKO leading the charge of a gaming initiative when it should just be a small footnote of it.
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