The Real Reason X-Men: Destiny Was Banned In The United States

Marvel's mutant contingent has been thriving since the 1960s. The rousing success behind Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's family of heroes born with extraordinary powers pushed the X-Men into other forms of entertainment. They ended getting a whole lot of love from kids thanks to their 90s cartoon series, several movie adaptations, and numerous appearances in video games.

Some of the defining games attached to the X-Men brand are still held in high regard. The beat 'em up arcade game, the self-titled Sega Genesis release that arrived in 1993, and the top-down X-Men Legends action RPG series are just some of the finest X-Men games ever made. However, there's one title among that list of games that was definitely a step below them.

That game is X-Men: Destiny, an action RPG that gave fans the chance to experience the ongoing conflict between the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Mutants as a trio of new mutants. Sadly, it didn't live up to the high expectations fans had attached to it. And even worse, it ended up getting banned in the United States due to an infamous lawsuit that brought its developer to its knees.

X-Men: Destiny owes its creation to the now-defunct development studio known as Silicon Knights.

Back in 2007, the studio got embroiled in legal dispute with Epic Games regarding the Xbox 360 exclusive Too Human. In a copy of the lawsuit filings posted by Gamasutra, Silicon Knights made the following statement: "Rather than provide support to Silicon Knights and Epic's other licensees of the Engine, Epic intentionally and wrongfully has used the fees from those licenses to launch its own game to widespread commercial success while simultaneously sabotaging efforts by Silicon Knights and others to develop their own video games."

The lawsuit alleged that Epic Games failed to provide Silicon Knights with a working version of Unreal Engine 3 for the studios' projects, essentially sabotaging companies like Silicon Knights. The ensuing court case eventually found that Silicon Knights had used portions of Unreal 3 to develop its own engine, which was a massive breach of contract.

That court ruling ultimately led to Silicon Knights being ordered to recall and destroy unsold copies of Too Human and X-Men: Destiny, as well as halt development on any other games using Unreal Engine 3.