Superhero Simulator Preview

I stumbled across the Steam page for Superhero Simulator quite by accident, but a third-person action game where you fly around doing comic book stuff? Yes, please. I can take or leave survival mechanics — needing to eat and stay clean — but needing to earn a living at a secret identity day job was a fun idea. So, I snapped up the chance to check this game out before it hit Early Access.

I customised my male hero (female heroes are on the roadmap), then got to see the survival mechanics in use as he woke up and got ready for hero-ing. After donning (and customising) the uniform, I was allowed outside — and immediately flew through a building, accompanied by the screams of terrified civilians.

This was, of course, my own fault because I didn’t aim towards the sky when I began to fly, my eagerness getting the better of me. Anyway, as I would soon learn, the city never remained damaged for very long. Only about 10 seconds, actually.

The tutorial led me through beating up some criminals, putting out fires, and rescuing a few civilians from danger. Then, I had nothing to do. I expected that any moment, the game would give me another task, or perhaps remind me to get something to eat. Heck, showing off the secret identity job would have been great!

But nope, I just flew around a little. Then landed and ran through the streets. Then flew through buildings over and over again; that was a good source of entertainment, actually.

While Superhero Simulator says it fully supports controllers, the main menu actually didn’t. Also, the on-screen prompts kept switching between keyboard, Xbox, and PlayStation buttons, which might confuse people who haven’t been familiar with them for 20 years like me.

My other issue is how the soundtrack consists of one track on repeat. It’s a banger for sure, but definitely not for a prolonged playtime.

All of that aside, the bare bones of what’s currently here was very well put together. It’s very well optimised and ran perfectly, except for a couple of framerate hiccups. The art style is great, and put me in mind of older Marvel superhero games, especially the city of Goldpine.

Superhero Simulator has a lot of promise and the developer has set out a roadmap for the next year or so, which looks promising. Though, featuring a female hero in the key art and Steam screenshots while it’s still 6-8 months away on the roadmap is a bit misleading. However, if you’d like to help mould the development as things progress, the game is out now in Early Access.