Superhero 2044 is the first super hero roleplaying game, and was inspired by a genre-mixing Dungeons & Dragons campaign run by Mike Ford at Indiana University. While the setting was good but sparse, the system (based on En Garde!) was rudimentary, involved more bookkeeping than heroic combat, and left superpowers entirely up to the GM. As a result, Superhero 2044 was almost entirely eclipsed by the far more successful Villains and Vigilantes in 1979.

The game is set in a future designed to make costumed heroes more believable. A six day nuclear war led to mutations and the rise of super powered beings ("uniques"), while the establishment of enclaves by aliens from Formalhaut brought in advanced technology for gadgeteers ("toolmasters"). There are also "ubermensch", or highly skilled normals. The Pacific island nation of Inguria has become a world power, and passed numerous laws supporting costumed crimefighting.

Characters are defined by seven attributes ("prime requisites"). Super powers are handled by general guidelines; there is no list of powers. Different types of combat are handled in different ways, from subtracting two bonuses and looking up a target number on a matrix, to rolling one die (plus modifiers) and then trying to beat that result with another die. While Superhero 2044 is the first game to completely eschew random character generation, actual gameplay involves scheduling a character's activities in 6 hour blocks (including sleep, dealing with lawsuits, and "going on patrol"), and rolling on tables to see what happens. The GM is supposed to run "handicapping scenarios" to rate a hero's ability, which in turn influences what happens on patrol.