A former Factor 5 Lead Designer, who goes by Salvatrix on Twitter, has shared more details about the cancelled Superman game codenamed Blue Steel.
In 2008, Factor 5 was tasked with making a Superman game for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Nintendo Wii. However, publisher Brash Entertainment went out of business, resulting in the closure of Factor 5‘s U.S. operations at the time.
The video below contains actual gameplay from the first playable pre-production build. According to Salvatrix, it was meant to showcase “the ease of engaging in melee brawling even in a full flight environment, as well as how that brawling interacted with the urban environment such as crashing through buildings (while still brawling).”
Salvatrix tweeted that Superman‘s cancellation is something she “still mourns to this day.”
“We put together this fast video montage to show what everything we wanted to have as gameplay. And we DID IT,” Salvatrix explained. “Aerial brawling, large urban environments, crashing through buildings, fast target engagement, knocking your foe into the next block, shockwaves from hits, impact grooves in the streets or building sides… all of it. We hadn’t seen a game really deliver on that promise before, and to be honest I have yet to see it delivered fully since.”
At the time of Brash’s closure and the project’s cancellation, the development team was moving towards full production as it had all the gameplay aspects “fully working” as a prototype. Superman was supposed to tie in with the second Bryan Singer Superman film, which also never saw the light of day.
