Zack Snyder’s newest project, Rebel Moon, is a big-budget space opera made for Netflix. Snyder has just revealed that the movie, planned to be released end 2023, will be kicking off a franchise – a follow-up has already been scheduled, and an animated series andvideo game have been planned as well.
Whether or not this game will be released through Netflix as well is unknown, but it seems unlikely. So far Netflix’s games have been mobile-focused and relatively small, and Snyder claims the RPG is “ridiculous scale”, “immersive”, “intense”, “literally insane”, and all the usual buzzwords that mean ‘quite big’. From Snyder’s comments, it seems like the RPG is already in progress and that he understands it’ll take a lot of time. I’m not sure if he understands just how much time.
Related:It’s Time To Let The SnyderVerse Go
Since Snyder wasn’t even supposed to be talking about it, we don’t have any further details. We don’t know what studio is making it, how long it’s been in the works, or a projected release date. If the game does get made, this is just another instance of studios piggybacking off big IPs to sell games, except Rebel Moon hasn’t even been released yet. We don’t know if the movie will be successful enough to warrant an entire franchise, or if it’ll be good. Even if it does make it off the ground, how can we know if Rebel Moon will even still be relevant?
We know that a game being based on IP is no guarantee that it’ll succeed. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leaguehas faced massive backlash from its audience, Star Wars Battlefront 2 flopped because of its loot box mechanics, Aliens: Colonial Marines looked worse than its demo and led to a class action lawsuit being filed against its developer, and these are all from the last ten years. I haven’t even brought up E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, which was so bad that it’s largely considered a cause of the video game industry’s crash in 1983.
It’s yet to be seen if brand loyalty is going to be enough to get audiences to buy into a whole new franchise, but here the brand loyalty is to Snyder, not his creation. Let’s not forget, Rebel Moon is, in itself, likely to be derivative – it was originally pitched to Lucasfilm as a Star Wars movie and turned down. Snyder has since been developing it as a separate universe full of lore, which probably plays into how big the game is projected to be, but there’s a good chance the game will be mid as best. Depending on which studio is making the game and how experienced it is with making games of this scale, the project could go disastrously.
I wonder how it’s going to hold up to Starfield, an equally large space RPG described by its director as “Skyrim in space” and made by Bethesda, who have plenty of experience making successful triple-A games. By the time we see the Rebel Moon – if we ever see it – will Starfield already have run its course, or will it still be a direct competitor? At this stage, the whole thing seems like a poorly planned misadventure based on an IP that nobody can know for sure will succeed – but I guess there’s only one way to find out.
