Summary
With the recent release of Marvel Studios’Deadpool & Wolverinebreaking box-office records and being largely well-received by audiences and critics,the price of High Moon Studios and Activision’s 2013Deadpoolvideo game has increased significantly on the second-hand marketto cash in on this. Due to the licensing deal Activision had with Marvel expiring, the original PS3, Xbox 360, and PC versions of Deadpool were delisted from all digital storefronts in 2014. The game was then remastered for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2015 in preparation for the 2016Deadpoolmovie, but was once again removed for the same licensing reasons just a couple of years later in 2017.
Therefore, due to this scarcity of the game, those looking to play the title legitimately on modern platforms are looking at a massively overinflated price. According toPrice Charting, the original PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions ofDeadpoolusually sell for around $30, and considering the PS3 version isn’t available on modern platforms through backwards compatibility, it makes sense that these would be on the lower end of the scale, even if $30 is still quite a bit to pay for an 11-year-old game.
The Xbox One version normally sells for about $50, and the PS4 version comes in at the most expensive price, usually retailing for $90. Following the release ofDeadpool & Wolverine, however, new listings for the game on second-hand sites such aseBaynow show that all versions of the game have seen a further increase and are mostly listed at over $100 USD, and some copies are selling for considerably more, withPS4 versions going for nearly $300 as of the time of writing.
I’m Finally Hopeful Some Of Marvel’s Best Games Could Return After 10 Years
Marvel has seen recent successes in AAA gaming, but a whole era has been largely lost to time due to its scarcity on modern devices.
I Own The PS4 Version Of Deadpool
But I Didn’t Pay $300 For It
I was fortunate enough that I got theDeadpoolgame back in 2013 when it first launched on PS3, and I enjoyed it enough back then for its zany humor, action, and cameos. Originally, I thought the PS4 remaster was too soon - a similar complaint I had about the PS4’sThe Last of Us Remasteredaround the same time - as we were seeing more remasters of games that had just launched a year or two before due to the PS4’s lack of backward compatibility features. However,I did eventually purchase the PS4 version second-hand for roughly £20when it got delisted a year later as, fortunately, one of the big second-hand game stores in my area clearly didn’t have their eye on the ball there.
I figured if I were to revisitDeadpoolin the future, I might as well have the remastered version, and I could see the inevitable price increase happening if Activision and Marvel didn’t reach a new licensing agreement. Alas, the PS4 version has sat in my backlog since then, but when I recently wrote aDeadpool-centric article - the related one below, in fact - and saw it going for almost $300 on resale sites, I figured that the reason the PS4 version would be way more expensive than the others - with the exception of Steam keys, which have been closer to $800 for years, according toGG Deals- would be because it was simply the best version of the game, so recently I opted to dive in.
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My PS4 Deadpool Experience Wasn’t Quite What I’d Hoped
The PS4 Version Has Awful Performance
Knowing thatthe PS4 version ofDeadpoolwas playable on thePS5 through backwards compatibility, I figured it would be the easiest way to play. I’d only need to boot up the one console near my TV instead of digging out my PS4 Pro, and maybe it would run better. Alas, the game’s performance was shockingly bad. Not only were frame drops constant and brutal, but rather than just being sluggish, the game would completely freeze for a second or so, which was infuriating mid-battle. The cutscenes ran well enough, though, although there were times when I noticed the quality in them dropped as well.
For the sake of fairness, before I started voicing my opinion on the internet, I wanted to check if this was just an issue with backward compatibility on PS5, especially as the PS5 was three years away from release whenDeadpoolwas delisted. Therefore, I dusted off my PS4 Pro and booted up the game on the system it was intended for. Alas, the same issue occurred there as well, andupon checking online, I could see this has been an issue since 2016on not just the PS4 (via.PlayStation Trophies) but also on the Xbox One release (via.Microsoft Community). Sadly, considering the licensing deal ended years ago, and High Moon Studios is now working primarily on theCall of Dutyfranchise, these performance issues will likely never be resolved. Therefore, when I next want to dive into Deadpool’s gaming venture, I’ll just boot up the PS3 version where I didn’t experience these problems, instead.
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Xbox has revealed two types of “cheeky” controllers, as part of a recent Deadpool & Wolverine sweepstakes, and a winner has provided more details.
Deadpool Still Has Its Fun Moments But Is Rather Short
And Its Humor Can Feel Somewhat Dated Now
Performance issues aside, the gameplay still had its fun momentsthat were more akin to what I remembered on PS3. There wasn’t an overly challenging learning curve - although the game did throw a lot of special enemy types at players in its later levels to increase the difficulty, so it’s best to keep track of what weapons and tactics were best to defeat them - andfor progression, there was an old-school arcade points system almost constantly ticking up, which could be used to buy and improve new weapons, with more enhancements being available the more a specific weapon was used. The main downside was that this could feel somewhat repetitive towards the end.
The biggest surprise for me was the game’s length. I seemed to recall it being far longer when I first played it in 2013, but it’s actually anextremely short campaign that only runs for about seven and a half hours across eight chapters.There are also challenges available to extend the playtime, but these do largely involve the same areas. In total, it takes about 16 hours to reach 100% completion.
As for the game’s humor, those only familiar withRyan Reynolds' portrayal of the characterin the movies might have a bit of a shock. While creators Rob Liefeld and Fabian Nicieza did originally introduce Wade Wilson/Deadpool as a villain in the comics - something he even noted in the game - the character did gradually start becoming sillier after he started becoming more of an antihero, with Joe Kelly’sDeadpoolminiseries starting to push the more comedic aspects, and then, by Kelly’s ongoingDeadpoolcomics run, Wade Wilson was portrayed as more of a goofy yet tragic character, which is something Reynolds' portrayal in the movies has leaned more into, showing his tragic side through his relationship with Vanessa, while also having himbreaking the fourth-wall and cracking jokes.
TheDeadpoolgame seems to pull far more from Daniel Way’sDeadpoolcomics from around 2009, which many fans believe de-emphasized the tragic elements of the character and cranked up the zaniness, leaning far more into the “LOLSORANDOM” meme humor of the 2000s and early 2010s instead. One prime example of this is Cable appearing as an Annoying Orange-esque visual of a taco. If you don’t know who the Annoying Orange was, then that should be an idea of how dated some of the humor can be at times. Deadpool’s long been depicted as an overly raunchy character at times, but he does come across more as a sex pest in his interactions with the women of this game - most of whom are very vocal in their disgust - which is a side that has been toned down somewhat in more recent portrayals in media and may come as a surprise to newer audiences.
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I love the Merc with a Mouth, but with the tone Insomniac seems to be aiming for with Marvel’s Wolverine, I hope he doesn’t appear in the game.
Is The Deadpool Game Worth $300 In 2024?
Absolutely Not
There’s been some discussion about the price of gaming increasing in recent years, from rumors that the upcomingGrand Theft Auto 6could cost $150 to make up for its long development time and large budget and Ubisoft recently coming under fire for its pricing ofAssassin’s Creed ShadowsandStar Wars Outlaws, which have Gold and Ultimate editions that cost $109.99 and $129.99, respectively, with varying amounts of content. This kind of pricing is only likely to become more common in the AAA gaming space, especially with a push to get more players using higher tiers of subscription services like Xbox Game Pass Ultimate or Ubisoft+ Premium to access these titles upon their launch instead.
While those costs are attributed to newer development costs etc, paying even more than double that for an 8-year-old release of an 11-year-old game seems ridiculous. Therefore, even if you have just come out of the cinema, having seenDeadpool & Wolverine,are amped up to the tunes of NSYNC and Madonna, and are craving a bit more Merc with a Mouth action, the game definitely isn’t worth $300.
Don’t waste your money, especially as it won’t even be going to the original developers of the game but rather to someone like me who most likely bought the game when it was at its normal price and sat on it until now before realizing Deadpool was back in the pop-culture zeitgeist with a new movie, and they could make a quick buck. The odds are that there will be more of a slump in pricing again, much as there was betweenDeadpool 2andDeadpool & Wolverinewhen the prices dropped to somewhat more reasonable rates. While PC players have long considered the title as abandonware and have downloaded it for free on easily found websites I am not allowed to share here, if you really wantDeadpoolon your console, you might as well wait a little bit longer until the movie’s hype subsides.
