Injustice: Gods Among Us is a good game, and NetherRealm Studios knows it. Injustice got the fighting game community intensely excited when it was released, causing EVO 2013 to break their usual rules and allow its entry after they had already finalized their games lineup. The lull in console game releases over the past few months on the competitive side of things is not especially surprising, but the relative lack of fighting games on the upcoming consoles (so far) has not gone unnoticed.
Now we have a proven fighter coming to next-gen.
NetherRealm Studios rightly takes a lot of pride in how well Injustice runs on PS3. The design issues of the system were nothing to laugh at, but the game runs smooth as could be desired from both a design and a gaming standpoint. Now they say they are perfectly happy to start all over to make a port of the game for PS4. The official reasons given for the excitement are the ease of designing on the upcoming console, but there are certainly other reasons they are so thrilled at the chance.
Killer Instinct is releasing on Xbox One, but the fighting community made its feelings about the game and console known well enough. There is no guarantee the changes in DRM policy will change the console’s reception and the fighter itself is untested. The company behind it has never made a fighting game and much of the language used to describe it has been focused on a more casual gaming crowd than the tournament-goers who ultimately keep such games alive and strong long after their release.
Injustice, on the other hand, is a tried and true game. It works, both from a gameplay standpoint and from the standpoint of sustainable community. NetherRealm does not need to gamble or sell the game, it is already a known factor.
In addition, it gives Sony a game to put up as an option for the fighting game community on next-gen. When the option was to either gamble on Xbox One and Killer Instinct or stick with current-gen fighters for a while, it was a tougher choice than having an option on PS4 they already knew would work.
Given my own appreciation for the game, I frankly cannot wait to see how this port looks!
