Article by: Justin Amirkhani
Of all the DC Universe’s primary heroes, Green Lantern is probably the least recognizable. Despite being printed since the 1940s, the character has barely even shared the spotlight with more popular heroes. That’s all about to change with the blockbuster film releasing this summer and a game adaptation that ties-in with the movie’s release. Ames Kirshen, executive producer with Warner Bros Interactive was able to speak with us about his upcoming game, Green Lantern: Rise of the Manhunters, and how his team are bringing DC’s unsung hero to life.
Green Lantern is a really big character in the DC Universe. I’m curious what it was like for the studio working with the DC Universe mythos and what sort of resources you used as research for the Green Lantern character.
I actually used to work at DC and I’ve been working with super heroes my entire career, which has included 11 years in video games. I know a great deal about the DC IP, I’ve grown up with it and it’s been a big part of my professional life. It was fantastic to finally be able to give Green Lantern his own stage because although he’s appeared in video games before – The Brave and the Bold which we released last year, Jon Stewart in the Justice League video game a few years before that, and Hal Jordan in Mortal Kombat vs DC – but Green Lantern has never had his own video game. It was really exciting to have a chance to be involved with the first ever tried-and-true Green Lantern game.
From that perspective it was super exciting but so was finding interesting other stories to tell in the movie universe while also bringing in the comic book fiction to tell a different story. [Our process] was about finding the best way to mix existing Green Lantern lore with the film. Talking to Geoff Johns – who I’ve known my whole career – and Marv Wolfman who wrote the game, our task was figuring out what the best kind of other story to tell within the scope of the film universe.
I’m really pleased with the story that came out of it and how it’s a great compliment to the film. It tells you a little bit of a different perspective and then some parts that take after the events of the film. I won’t give much away, but it gives consumers a glimpse in to the depth of the Green Lantern universe, beyond what they’re going to see in the feature film when that comes out.
You said it yourself, Green Lantern’s never had his own game and part of the reason I assume that’s true is because he’s kind of a hard character to make a game about. How do you create a game that showcases a hero that can invent any weapon at any given time? By the nature of his powers, he seems impossible to make a game out of.
It’s an interesting question, and to your point this is a character who wields a weapon that can will anything the wearer thinks of in their head. So, how do you do that in a controlled way that’s still fun from a technology and game design perspective? We boiled it down to what we feel the most interesting and visceral tools are going to be, and what most Green Lantern fans would want to play with if they could actually control anything they wanted.
That’s why we came up with the constructs that we have in the game. Obviously for technological and design reasons we had to boil it down to a set, but I think everybody is going to be really pleased with that set. It’s customizable, so as you’re going through the game you’ll be able to unlock new constructs and slot constructs as you like them through the game. If there’s a specific set of constructs that you enjoy, you can slot up to eight at any given time and customize them to your play pattern. We allow players to map them to any buttons they want and I think that although we can’t just give the player the ability to do anything they want, everyone will be relatively pleased with the choices that were made because many were inspired from constructs in the film, but we also have constructs that are unique to the game.
