Way back in 2013, many years before the character was a box office smash success, Deadpool starred in his own self-titled video game. Built by High Moon Studios for the PS3/Xbox 360 era of hardware, it took some scattered bits of buried lore from the Marvel comics series, smashed them together into an original story, and exploded out onto the market to distinctly middling results.
The game is a mundane third person action adventure, which features both up-close sword combat and ranged attacks, all tied together with a clumsy camera and lots of wacky writing. It wasn’t the most high budget affair, but rather than try to pretend that away, Deadpool leans into its jankiness, constantly calling attention to cheap props or stilted plot moments in the actual narrative. The real-life head of the development studio is even a prominent character, constantly battling Deadpool in a back-and-forth throughout the game over how much money they’re spending on it. It’s a solid narrative fit for the character, what with his constant fourth wall breaking and cavalier attitude towards his own fictional universe.
Deadpool is brought to life in the game not by Ryan Reynolds (though there are jokes about his at-the-time nascent efforts to make a movie happen), but…
