James Gunn Addresses If Future DC Games Will Have to Follow DCU Canon

James Gunn has addressed on how future DC games will work with the new DC Universe canon. Over the last decade or so, big cinematic universes have become a significant part of our culture. Everything has an expanded universe now across books, movies, games, TV shows, spin-off projects, and more. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a big reason for this and naturally, DC wanted to make sure it could compete. So, we got a universe spearheaded by Zack Snyder which led to Man of Steel, Batman v Superman, Justice League, and a couple of other movies. Unfortunately, due to studio mismanagement and other factors, this all collapsed pretty quickly and showed the MCU wasn’t some easy thing to replicate. Now, we’re on our first proper reboot of the DC universe with James Gunn leading the charge. However, he has a unique approach to his universe that separates it from Marvel: it will include things like video games.

The MCU has largely avoided having any video game tie-ins post-Phase One and has opted more to just add in small DLCs like skins for games like Marvel’s Spider-Man. The DC Universe, however, will continue its stories and expand itself in the gaming medium. As of right now, we have no idea how this will work, but there is some concern over whether or not all future DC games will be forced to be part of the canon. As such, this would mean games like the Arkham series would not be able to be made going forward and even a game like Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League would be the last of its kind. Thankfully, Gunn has clarified things and confirmed on Threads that won’t be the case. While he didn’t elaborate further, we can say that there will still be DC games unconnected to the DCU.

However, this does bring up the question of if studios will be able to choose whether their next project is a DCU project or not. Is Rocksteady going to be selected to make a DCU game or will studios be able to freely decide on if they’re contributing to the DCU. Given James Gunn is one of the architects of this whole new universe, it seems hard to imagine they don’t have some idea of where a game could slide in and need a developer to make it happen, but we’ll just have to wait and see.