I’m a big fan of licensed games. An outright defender. It wasn’t that long ago I combed through PlayStation Plus topraise its collection of licensed games, and the research for that piece reminded me of the last few years for licensed games as a whole. It’s been a time defined by typical safe bets, both small and large. Nothing that we haven’t seen for a long while, the way the industry has been treating licensed games for almost a decade.
Then 2023 rolled around, bringing with it a tidal wave of licensed games (some better than others), and giving me renewed hope that we could see a licensed game renaissance in the years ahead.
The New Dreamlight Valley DLC Has A Location That’s A Reward All In Itself
Jafar has an eye for interior cave design.
Leaping Away From Safety Nets
Looking at 2021 and 2022 sums up the trend for the years preceding those. Long gone were the days ofevery movie getting a tie-in game, with mobile tie-in games largely taking their place, leaving the console space mostly filled with crossovers.Disneystill got games such asMarvel’s AvengersandLEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, meaning franchises within franchises were given the O.K. to release a game containing characters from multiple sources.Nickelodeoncarried this ideology as well with the Kart Racers series and All-Star Brawl, but even a property as hot asSpongeBob SquarePantswas refused a stand-alone, aside from Battle For Bikini Bottom Rehydrated, which was a remake of an already popular game.
The best deep dive you could make is the catalog of Outright Games for the past few years;thelicensed game makers at the moment. Outright makes decent to middling kids' games, the ones I found all over PlayStation Plus, but they rarely used specific shows like Peppa Pig (or this year when they landed Bluey, which is actually quite good, andperfect to introduce young kids to gaming). Instead, Outright Games overwhelmingly used film properties, and only those with a long history and multiple entries, such as Scrat’s Nutty Adventure (an Ice Age game well after several Ice Age movies) or Hotel Transylvania Scary-Tale Adventures (released after the series' fourth film). Said games were ultimately budget titles, fun but nothing very deep, really not too far off from how anime games have been treated in the past few years, with licenses likeDragon BallandOne Piecebeing used to paint over generic game.
These games would usually make their money, and then leave the public consciousness. Few left lasting impressions.
Now look at 2023.Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, for my money, is a vast improvement over the last two entries, continuingInsomniac’s excellent form for third entries in series. It’s easy not to think of the all-conqueringBaldur’s Gate 3as a licensed game, but the fact is it marks a triumphant return for an ancient RPG licensed out from D&D/Wizards of the Coast. All-Star Brawl is a fascinating one, an unassuming brawler many were disappointed by, only for 2023’sAll-Star Brawl 2to be a surprising upgrade across the board both in terms of presentation and mechanics. Even SpongeBob finally got a brand-new stand-alone game inSpongeBob SquarePants The Cosmic Shake, a 3D platformer solid enough for me to play it all the way through to a Platinum trophy.
For something far more unexpected and pleasantly surprising, Teyon went and made a Robocop game this year and it’s awesome!Rogue Cityearned buzz around launch partially due to how unexpected it was (Robo’s last showing was a DLC fighter forMortal Kombat11), but also for its genuine quality. I outright saidHalo could learn a thing or two from Rogue City, and it ended up in my top 5 for the year.
Licensed games from the past few years weren’t all that bad, as someone who’s played my fair share of them, but nothing of this level has existed for quite some time.
But How Can Licensed Games Move Forward
I would probably have skipped mentioning the bad eggs ifLord Of The Rings: Gollumwas the only licensed game that got the ire, butfourlicensed games immediately made a case for worst games of the year, offering plenty of cautionary tales on hownotto use movie or TV licensing.
Gollum ended up the least hated once Avatar: The Last Airbender - Quest For Balance, Skull Island: Rise Of Kong (and itsludicrous DLC), and The Walking Dead: Destinies revealed the little effort behind them. Gollum, however, had ideas that came close to meeting fruition, such as a mechanic where the player had to choose between reacting as “Gollum” or “Smeagol”, allowing you to find the goodness inside this doomed character or to embrace his dark side.
Rogue City and Gollum end up as perfect yet opposite examples of how licensed games should go forward, in that regard. As hated as Gollum was, there were ideas and passion under the surface that unfortunately didn’t see the right execution. Rogue City is a game thatsucceedsin those attempts, making something enjoyable even if you’ve never seen Robocop, purely because its a functioning game with mechanics that are fleshed out enough to stand on their own legs.
I don’t want more Rise of Kong, but I do want more games taking inspiration from the likes of Cosmic Shake and Rogue City. As a licensed game lover, there’s a little secret behind them: Licensed games are greenlight (or demanded in some cases, such as the boom of them in the early 2000’s) on the basis that the license guarantees a sale (not always the reality but always the assumption). This mentality can lead to stinkers, both horrible or just middling, but in the hands of developers who smell the chance to throw a lot of ideas around to a predetermined fanbase, you can strike gold or even innovate the industry.
Cosmic Shake feels like a modern attempt at an old school 3D platformer, and I’ve seen a lot of so-called “returns” to that genre that failed in every aspect Cosmic Shake scored in. Rogue City is a first-person shooter with interesting dialogue systems and upgrade features you have to think about. I would love to see future FPS games take a few notes, as an FPS hasn’t earned my love this much since Super Hot.
2023 brought me right back to years like 2004 (the year of the original Spider-Man 2 game), when a licensed game could be life-changing. And just like 2004, many of these incredible licensed games remain budget-friendly (Cosmic Shake is only $40 and Rogue City it $50 on PC or $60 on console). Yes, games like Walking Dead: Destinies came out this year, but there were enough great licensed game blueprints to counteract them that there’s a good chance the future of licensed games is bright.
