For a long time, licensed games were often seen as the worst that the gaming industry can offer. This is especially true for movie and comic book tie-ins. One only has to look at the likes of Superman 64 or Street Fighter: The Movie Videogame to see just how awful a licensed title can be.
However, in recent years as developers have more power to achieve the vision that they want and make a more faithful adaptation of license gamers have had incredible games based featuring the likes of Spider-Man, Batman, Star Wars, and the Lord of the Rings bringing films and comic books to life in gaming. Let’s take a look at where Metacritic ranks some of the best-licensed games of all time.
10 South Park: Stick Of Truth (Metascore 85)
South Park: Stick of Truth is an RPG based on the South Park TV show. It was released in 2014 and developed by Obsidian Entertainment who previously made Fallout: New Vegas, Pillars of Eternity, and more recently The Outer Worlds.
Obsidian managed to capture the exact look of the TV show and make players feel like they were participating in an episode especially when it came to exploring the town. Stick of Truth’s story was written by the show’s creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone who were heavily involved in the game’s development process.
9 Batman: Arkham Knight (Metascore 85)
Batman: Arkham Knight is the third entry in the Batman: Arkham series developed by Rocksteady. It was released in 2015 and is set one year after the events of Batman: Arkham City and Batman having to deal with a new foe called the Arkham Knight.
Arkham Knight is a much more open-world experience than its predecessors and introduced the Batmobile as Batman’s main mode of transport. Although it was a great addition, there was perhaps, too much focus on the Batmobile when it came to the game’s boss fights which as the game’s most climactic moments descended into tank battles. That aside, Arkham Knight is still an incredible experience with a great story full of twists.
8 Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor (Metascore 87)
Released in 2014, Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor was developed by Monolith Productions the same team responsible for Condemned: Criminal Origins and the F.E.A.R series. It’s a non-canon story based in the Lord of the Rings universe.
Mechanically, the game had more than a few similarities to Assassin’s Creed and Batman: Arkham series. However, it was the game’s Nemesis system that made it unique. It features enemy NPC’s reacting, remembering, disfigurements from battle, and growing stronger depending on encounters made with the game’s protagonist.
7 Marvel’s Spider-Man (Metascore 87)
Marvel’s Spider-Man was released exclusively for the PlayStation 4 in 2018. It is an open-world action-adventure superhero game developed by Insomniac Games. Spider-Man has to stop the supervillain Mister Negative from releasing a virus that will kill everyone in the city.
In addition, he has to take on a rogue’s gallery of supervillains like Rhino, Vulture, Electro, Taskmaster, and more. Marvel’s Spider-Man arguably features the best combat, web-slinging, and open-world ever created for the character despite the large library of games released under his name.
6 Injustice 2 Legendary Edition (Metascore 88)
Injustice 2 was released on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and the PC in 2017. It’s a superhero fighting game that was created by Mortal Kombat developers NetherRealm Studios. It features DC characters like Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash and several more.
Although it’s not as bloody and gory as the Mortal Kombat series, the fighting is just brutal with all the hits and kicks landing with the kind of impact one would expect from a superhero. It features one of the best story modes ever seen in a fighting game and is one of the most accessible games in the genre to newcomers.
5 The Witcher 2: Assassin Of Kings (Metascore 88)
Originally released on the PC in 2011 with an Xbox 360 version to follow in 2012 The Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings is an RPG that remains one of the games based on a novel and has a narrative experience that is far more compelling than most games in the same genre.
Developed by CD Projekt Red, The Witcher series is based on the Andrjez Sapkowski fantasy books of the same name. In terms of its story and presentation, the game shares many similarities to the Dragon Age series but the choices and interactions have an even bigger and lasting effect on the game’s world.
4 The Walking Dead: A Telltale Games Series (Metascore 89)
The Walking Dead: A Telltale Games Series was developed by the now-defunct Telltale Studios. It’s an interactive drama that incorporates many of the same gameplay mechanics as a point-and-click adventure.
However, there are no complicated puzzles to solve just a focus on drama and difficult choices that affect how the narrative develops. The game series has its own unique story that is separate from the comics and the TV show and follows a young girl named Clementine as she fights for survival in a post-apocalyptic world filled with zombies and dangerous human survivors.
3 Metro 2033 Redux (Metascore 90)
Metro 2033 Redux is the remastered combination of Metro: Last Light and Metro 2033 for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One released in 2014. The games are based on the post-apocalyptic novel Metro 2033 by Dimitry Glukhovsky.
They are first-person survival horror games set in post-apocalyptic Moscow where humans are living underground due to the nuclear fallout that has ruined the earth. The level design is atmospheric and foreboding but there’s a surprising amount of freedom in both games despite the suffocating atmosphere both figuratively and literally.
2 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (Metascore 92)
First released in 2015 for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and the PC The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is still rated among the greatest and most influential RPGs ever released. Developers CD Projekt Red also managed to port the game to the Nintendo Switch in 2019 complete with all of the released DLC.
In terms of its very organic and dark story, the character interaction and its open world, The Witcher 3 is one of the most impactful games of a generation. There is so much variety to be found in the game’s towns, culture and lore that it would take hundreds of hours to discover it all.
1 Batman: Arkham City (Metascore 96)
First released on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in 2011, Batman: Arkham City was a direct sequel to Batman: Arkham Asylum. It was once again developed by Rocksteady and gave players an even bigger world for the Dark Knight to take down bad guys with and proving that the developers knew exactly how the Batman license should be implemented in a videogame.
Even though the world was more open than its predecessor, it was still a tightly packed and focused experience that still managed to feel almost Metroidvania-like in its design. Batman has an even bigger arsenal of weapons and skills to use in one of the best stealth experiences ever created and the combat once again flowed beautifully making players feel like a superhero.