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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