1 week Ago By Justin Carter
What a month it’s been for fans of the Predator. 20th Century Studios offered our best looks yet at the theatrical, Dan Trachtenberg-directed Badlands and the animated anthology Killer of Killers . In the comics, the alien’s just kicked off a fight with Spider-Man that’s later going to see the larger Marvel universe catch hands over the summer.
There’s really only one thing missing from this feast, and that would be a video game. Not counting its many, many crossovers with Alien, the Predator franchise has a fairly small games presence across its 38-year life. Aside from adaptations for the first two movies and a mobile tie-in for 2010’s Predators, the significant titles have been 2005’s Concrete Jungle, a 2018 VR game, and 2020’s multiplayer-focused Hunting Grounds .
But the monster’s most important appearance was as DLC for Mortal Kombat X (which also featured the Alien, natch). Yautja are apparently best suited to multiplayer, and it’s easy to see why: they have better technology than whoever they go up against (even themselves), and as in the movies, they’re best as an obstacle to overcome . Hunting Grounds is still being supported with new content, but not every player is willing to jump into a competitive game to fulfill their dreams of being an intergalactic hunter.
The Alien has enough terror baked into its premise and concept that allows it to facilitate shooters, real-time tactics, and survival horror (even a Metroidvania, once). By comparison, the Predator is perceived to have such a limited range it can’t even get a single-player game of its own, as no studio’s tried giving the franchise its own equivalent to Alien Isolation . Concrete Jungle opened to lousy reviews back in the day, and that’s likely the biggest reason why.
It starred a disgraced Predator named Scarface looks to regain his honor by hunting down the humans using his people’s technology, which was a decent way to even the odds between hunter and prey. As apparently imperfect as that game was, its existence proves the Predator could be suited to single-player with the proper attention and execution. Part of what makes Badlands so intriguing to me is Trachtenberg pulling a perspective switch and turning a Predator—a young Yautja outcast named Dak—into the protagonist as he travels to an alien planet to build himself into a proper hunter.
That’s a video game-esque premise, right down to Dak wielding a sword and having an android companion. Trachtenberg called Shadow of the Colossus an inspiration on the film, and the decision to give Dak and the film’s other Yautja a complete language to speak feel like choices a game developer would make to provide the immersive experience of being a Predator. Trachtenberg directed a short film for Portal in 2011, then a cinematic intro for Digital Extremes’ Warframe in 2019, so video games may just inherently be part of his filmmaking language.
In between big blockbuster titles from Marvel and Star Wars , Disney’s licensed out its properties to game developers that’ve made some interesting swings, from life sims, to platformers starring Mickey Mouse and friends, and a Tron visual novel. RoboCop and Terminator show there’s more freedom in what IP-based games can be compared to the old tie-in days, and it seems 20th Century is still trying to feel out how to continue Predator without committing to a long-term plan. If the studio is looking to keep it going in new, interesting directions, a game might be the way, and it deserves some kind of shot to prove itself in the medium.
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