When it comes to superhero teams, the X-Men are one of the best. The sheer number of characters who’ve called the X-Men home and the wild array of powers available make these heroes some of the most versatile in the Marvel universe. There’s a reason Marvel Rivals has brought so many X-Men into the fold, after all. And yet despite having so many unique powers on offer, it’s been years since the last really great game focused on the X-Men. As of today, in fact, it’s been precisely 20 years since the last game most fans agree was a truly solid X-Men entry.
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The game I’m referring to is, of course, X-Men Legends 2: Apocalypse, which came out on September 20th, 2005. Although X-Men Origins: Wolverine delivered a surprisingly solid movie tie-in experience a few years later in 2009, that was more of a Wolverine game than a true X-Men team title. And so, it’s been quite a long time since a game delivered on the kind of gaming experience X-Men fans deserve. In honor of this iconic title, let’s talk about what made X-Men Legends 2: Apocalypse so good… and maybe give developers a reminder about what we want to see when the next X-Men game arrives.
X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse Was a Solid Sequel and a Great Game
The first X-Men Legends game arrived during the PS2 and Gamecube era, bringing fans an exciting new mutant RPG to enjoy. The game let you play as as team, giving it that true X-Men vibe, even giving you the option to play with friends in a co-op campaign. It received critical praise for the cel-shading style that made it feel like stepping into a comic book, while also impressing players with solid combat and RPG elements. And of course, the game sold well enough to spawn a sequel. But as all gamers know all too well, not every sequel lives up to expectations.
X-Men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse, however, delivered. Critically, it outperformed its predecessor with higher overall reviews. The sequel lived up fan expectations from the first game, while also adding new features like more playable characters, a more ambitious story, and online co-op. That said, the game was a little bit limited when it came to gameplay, which lost a bit of balance in favor of big, powerful moves that some gamers felt made combat less satsifying. Even so, there’s no denying that X-Men Legends 2 was a pretty solid game that let you play as a team of X-Men. And that is something we haven’t really seen since.
Although it wasn’t perfect, X-Men Legends 2 is widely considered the last truly good X-Men game we got. The movie tie-in X-Men: The Official Game isn’t the worst movie tie-in game ever made, but it’s certainly not great. It lost the fun of the team-based RPG vibes from the Legends games and instead opted for beat ’em up style gameplay and an original story meant to bridge the gap between the film adaptations. Basically, it was mid, and things went downhill from there. 2011’s X-Men: Destiny failed to deliver on the promise of prior X-Men games, and the game after that was a mobile-only entry that went offline in 2021. In all, we haven’t seen a return to form since the X-Men Legends series ended with Rise of Apocalypse.
We’re Past Due for Another Great X-Men Game
Sadly, we never got X-Men Legends 3.This is largely because the team shifted its focus to Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, which uses a wider roster of Marvel characers. X-Men characters certainly feature here, and have been present in many Marvel games since. But for many X-Men fans, it’d be nice to get another great RPG that lets us delve into a story with our favorite team of mutants. If you’re missing the feeling of X-Men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse gameplay, the three Marvel: Ultimate Alliance games will certainly deliver. But unfortunately, they aren’t really X-Men games.
In the same vein, the upcoming Marvel’s Wolverine will follow in the footsteps of X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Technically, it’s an X-Men game, but with the focus on Wolverine, it’s more of an X-Man situation. Hopefully, it’ll be a solid single-hero game from Insomniac, but a great X-Men game, it is not. That’s where fans have our hopes pinned a little down the line. Rumors and leaks suggest that Insomniac is bringing us a new X-Men game eventually, provided things pan out okay with Marvel’s Wolverine and other projects.
Even if Insomniac does deliver on its rumored X-Men game, that’s not slated until years in the future. In the meantime, our X-Men keep starring in fighting games like Marvel Rivals and the upcoming Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls. But as for an RPG where we can play as the X-Men and experience a story with this core team, we’ve been waiting 20 years, and we’ll be waiting a while longer still.
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