Today, when you think “Justice League fighting game”, you think Injustice: Gods Among Us, and when you think “fighting game by Double Helix Games,” you think of the Killer Instinct reboot for Xbox One (more specifically, the first season). But what if that wasn’t the case? What if instead of NetherRealm, Double Helix got the chance to make a fighting game based on DC Comics properties? The funny thing is, this actually almost happened.
Sometime around 2010, Double Helix was hard at work on a Justice League fighting game for previous-generation consoles. This title was supposedly a tie-in to the Justice League movie helmed by Australian director George Miller (Mad Max, Happy Feet) that never surfaced. This, combined with the fact that DC Comics’ parent company eventually bought what was left of Midway Games to form their own fighting game developer – NetherRealm Studios – meant that the game never saw the light of day.
That said, footage of the game does actually exist. The fine folks over at Past to Present Online, the same guys that shared with us footage of the early Xbox 360 builds of Killer Instinct, have been able to get their hands on a prototype, gameplay of which you can watch below.
The game itself plays quite differently from either Injustice or Killer Instinct. Instead, the game is a free-roaming 3D fighter similar to Power Stone or even the Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm and Gundam Vs. games. Additionally, it seems to respect the characters power levers better than other games, with Superman easily shrugging off Batman’s blows while floating in the air.
Source: Past to Present Online via Kotaku