Injustice 2

Gameplay

Injustice 2 is a fighting game in which players compete in one-on-one combat using characters from the DC Universe and other third-party franchises. Using different combinations of directional inputs and button presses, players must perform basic attacks, special moves, and combos to try to damage and knock out the opposing fighter. Injustice 2 retains numerous gameplay mechanics from Injustice: Gods Among Us, including environment interaction, stage transitions, clashes, and character traits. The trait system, like before, provides a temporary buff or ability that complements each character's playstyle. The super meter, which allows players to execute enhanced special moves and unlock powerful "super moves" when fully charged, also returns. Players can expend meter to perform new techniques, such as an evasive forward roll, which provides a way to overcome enemy keep-away tactics, or an air recovery, which lets characters escape an opponent's combo early. Most environmental attacks, which were completely unavoidable in the first Injustice game, can now be blocked or dodged; however, certain environmental attacks with large amounts of startup, such as throwing a car, remain unblockable.

Injustice 2 introduces a loot-dropping system, known as the "Gear System", which offers character-specific costume pieces and equipment with status-altering effects. The Gear System uses RPG-like mechanics to reward players with experience and loot after every match. Every playable fighter is given four base stats: strength, defense, health, and ability, the latter of which impacts special attacks. As players collect experience points and level up, their characters' base stats will increase. Players can enhance their base stats even further by equipping gear obtained through loot drops, which also lets players customize the look of their characters. Rarer gear can include one or more bonus augmentations, which range from new visual effects for special moves to higher yields of in-game currency or experience points. Players can receive additional bonuses by equipping their characters with all five pieces of a single gear set. Gear comes in three varieties: equipment, shaders, and abilities. Besides the random loot earned at the end of a fight, all three types of gear are available to purchase in loot crates, known as "Mother Boxes", using in-game currency. Each character has five equipment slots for donning new costume pieces, which include their head, torso, arms, legs, and an accessory; two ability slots for equipping new or modified special attacks; and one shader slot for altering their color scheme. The game will also include five separate gear loadouts for each character, allowing players to switch between their setups at the beginning of each match.

Plot

The game begins with Kara Zor-El and an infant Kal-El escaping from Krypton during Brainiac's invasion of the planet. Aided by Kara's mother, they manage to escape aboard pods headed to Earth, but Kara's ship is knocked off course. Years later, prior to the events of the first game, Batman and his son Robin attempt to stop Superman's Regime from executing Arkham Asylum inmates. Failing to dissuade Superman, Batman fights him but is attacked by Robin, who prefers Superman's methods. Batman defeats Robin, but the latter leaves with Superman to join the Regime after executing Victor Zsasz.

In the present, 2 years after the Regime's fall, Batman and his Insurgency are attempting to restore social order. They learn of a new faction, the Society, composed of villains spearheaded by Gorilla Grodd, who seeks global domination. Black Canary, an alternate universe Green Arrow, and a reformed Harley Quinn are tasked by Batman with stopping the Society and track them to Slaughter Swamp, where they encounter Swamp Thing. Following the villains to Gorilla City, the heroes are warned by Doctor Fate of an incoming threat. Black Canary and Green Arrow are abducted by Brainiac, the mastermind behind the Society, who intends to add Earth to his collection of shrunken planets. After Brainiac takes over Batman's communications hub, Brother Eye, Batman searches for allies to defeat him.

While Catwoman, a double agent for Batman in the Society, rescues Harley, a reformed Flash and Green Lantern join Batman to take down Brainiac. Green Lantern is sent to recruit Aquaman, who agrees to help after Brainiac attacks Atlantis. Meanwhile, Black Adam, Wonder Woman, and Kara (who was rescued by Adam years prior and adopted the Supergirl alias) break Nightwing and Cyborg out of prison in an attempt to re-establish the Regime and defeat Brainiac. They are stopped by Blue Beetle and Firestorm before Batman arrives. Batman frees Superman and reluctantly allies with the Regime members on the condition that no one is killed in the upcoming battles.

Cyborg, Catwoman, and Harley go to the Batcave to free Brother Eye from Brainiac's control, and defeat the Society members sent to stop them. Meanwhile, Wonder Woman and Supergirl fight the remaining Society members in New Metropolis; when the former almost kills Cheetah, Harley interferes, causing Wonder Woman to attack her. Supergirl goes to the Fortress of Solitude to confront Superman over the incident, and learns of his tyranny. As Brainiac prepares to destroy Earth after collecting enough cities, the Insurgency and the Regime attack his ship, but fail to get through its shields and seemingly lose Superman. The group decides to weaken the shields by using Aquaman's trident as a conduit for the magic of the Rock of Eternity, which Black Adam and Aquaman proceed to retrieve. They are followed by Grodd, who has brainwashed Black Canary, Green Arrow, and Blue Beetle, but they defeat the brainwashed heroes, and Aquaman executes Grodd.

Characters

The base roster for Injustice 2 includes 28 playable fighters, consisting of both new and returning heroes and villains. The game also features 10 additional characters available as downloadable content (DLC). Red Hood, Starfire, and Sub-Zero made up Fighter Pack 1, while Fighter Pack 2 brought in Black Manta, Hellboy, and Raiden, and Fighter Pack 3 introduced Atom, Enchantress, and the TMNT. Darkseid was a pre-order bonus and later made available as standalone DLC from the Fighter Packs.

New playable characters are listed in bold, while guest characters are listed with an underscore.

Additionally, several characters are playable as "premier skins", which transform characters from the existing roster into other characters from mostly DC Comics Universe with unique voices, dialogue, and in certain cases, altered normal/special/super moves and character powers.

^DLC: Available as downloadable content.^MOB: Mobile-exclusive character

Development

Injustice 2 was announced by NetherRealm Studios and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment on June 8, 2016. Following the release of Injustice: Gods Among Us, NetherRealm Studios sought to do "something unexpected and long-term" for its sequel, as well as give players "a level of control that makes playing [their] games a truly personal experience." Ed Boon also wanted to infuse various gameplay mechanics used by recent multiplayer shooter games, such as personalization, character creation, loot, and leveling up, into the fighting game genre. According to producer Adam Urbano, the idea of creating a fighting game utilizing a role playing game-like progression system had been floating around the studio since before the closing of Midway Games, the original developer and publisher for the Mortal Kombat series. Due to the success of the original Injustice, which earned NetherRealm Studios the trust of Warner Bros. and DC Comics, the development team decided to pitch their progression concept for the sequel, which was approved, leading to the implementation of the Gear System.

The Gear System was designed to encourage players to develop unique personal playstyles, while consistently rewarding them for investing time into the game. According to senior marketing game manager Brian Goodman, the developers wanted the Gear System to cater to both the casual and hardcore audiences. They hoped that hardcore players would appreciate the different mechanics offered by the system and create new strategies and fighting styles for each character, while casual players would enjoy the variety of visual customization options. NetherRealm also foresaw the potential issue with newer players being dominated by veteran players who have obtained rarer gear sets. To address this, the developers attempted to implement various solutions, such as giving players the option to disable stat modifiers during matches and the ability to buy rarer gear through the assorted tiers of Mother Boxes. A "balance team" was also consulted during development to try to prevent players from clustering around a small number of optimal builds.

NetherRealm Studios collaborated with DC Comics throughout Injustice 2's entire development process, including conceptualizing characters and determining the direction of the story. As with Injustice: Gods Among Us, NetherRealm was afforded extensive freedom with DC Comics' properties when designing characters. Lead designer John Edwards stated that all of their design ideas had to pass through DC Comics' approval process; though, the company had rarely rejected them. This allowed the developers to create a large variety of costume variations and visually distinct items inspired by decades of source material. "It's a mutual respect," explained art director Steve Beran. "They respect what we do, and we respect all their characters. We are fans of their characters and, I think, art-wise and design-wise, we put a lot of detail that hardcore fans will like. We tried to really honor every character."

Release

Injustice 2 released in North America on May 16, 2017; Australia on May 17, 2017; and most European countries including the United Kingdom on May 19, 2017, for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Aside from the standard edition of the game, a Digital Deluxe Edition and an Ultimate Edition were available for purchase. The Digital Deluxe Edition included three downloadable content (DLC) characters, the Power Girl premier skin, and one exclusive gear shader pack; the Ultimate Edition included nine DLC characters, the Reverse-Flash, John Stewart, and Power Girl premier skins, and two exclusive gear shader packs. Pre-orders of the game featured Darkseid as a playable DLC fighter.

On May 8, 2017, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment announced the Injustice 2 Championship Series, a global eSports program. The series offered amateur and professional players throughout North America, Europe, and Latin America a chance to compete in different programs for a portion of a US$600,000 prize pool. These included the Injustice 2 Pro Series, an international tournament; the GameStop Hometown Heroes tournament, set in the United States; the Path to Pro tournament, set in Europe; and the Liga Latina, set in Argentina, Chile, Mexico, and Peru. The top players from each program qualified for the ELEAGUE Injustice 2 World Championship, which featured a US$250,000 prize pool. The event took place in Atlanta, Georgia, from October 21 through November 10, and was streamed worldwide through the ELEAGUE website, Twitch, and YouTube; matches were also broadcast live on TBS in the United States. On April 10, 2018, NetherRealm announced that the Pro Series would return for a second season.

On October 24, 2017, Warner Bros. announced that a Windows version developed by QLOC, who had previously taken over development for Mortal Kombat X's PC port from High Voltage Software, was due for release in Q4 2017, with an open beta stage beginning on October 25. However, the beta was postponed for unspecified reasons, ultimately running between November 6 and November 11. The Windows version was released on November 14, 2017. Creative director Ed Boon has also discussed the possibility of a Nintendo Switch version.

Mobile version

Like its predecessor, a free-to-play mobile app based on Injustice 2 was iOS and Android devices on May 9, 2017, and May 11, respectively. The app was soft launched in the Philippines App Store in February 2017. It maintains several gameplay features from the original, including the swipe-based fighting mechanics, card collection, and three-on-three battles, but introduces various changes to the game's overall formula. Players are given the ability to move around the stage freely during combat, as well as use jumping and crouching attacks. The stamina management system returns; however, instead of each character receiving their own allotment of stamina, the player is given a single pool of stamina which depletes after every match. Fights also require higher levels of stamina than the previous game. The app includes login bonuses; daily objectives, which offer experience and coins; and achievements, which are long-term goals that reward players with premium gems and "hero shards" used for unlocking and leveling up characters. It also features game mechanics similar to those found in the console versions, such as ability and gear upgrades. The app includes a story mode, which released chapter by chapter in subsequent updates. According to Google Play, the Android version of the app has been downloaded at least ten million times since its release.

Downloadable content

According to Boon, NetherRealm Studios planned to take a more "aggressive approach" for downloadable content in Injustice 2 compared to their previous games. "One of the things we’ve been doing, trying to do more and more with every game...is to support it for a longer period of time," Boon stated, "With DLC characters, we’ve had four with Mortal Kombat, six with Injustice, eight with Mortal Kombat X, and with Injustice 2 we plan on continuing that pattern." On May 5, 2017, NetherRealm Studios announced Fighter Pack 1, which includes three DLC characters: Red Hood, Starfire, and Mortal Kombat's Sub-Zero. Red Hood was released on June 13, 2017; Sub-Zero was released on July 11, 2017; and Starfire was released on August 8, 2017. Fighter Pack 2, consisting of Black Manta, Mortal Kombat's Raiden, and Dark Horse Comics' Hellboy, was revealed on August 23, 2017, at Gamescom. Black Manta was released on September 12, 2017; Raiden was released on October 3, 2017, alongside the Black Lightning premier skin; and Hellboy was released on November 14, 2017. On October 3, 2017, during the finale of The CW's documentary television series Chasing the Cup: Injustice 2, Atom was revealed as the next DLC addition. The third DLC pack, Fighter Pack 3, was unveiled during the finals of the ELEAGUE Injustice 2 World Championship on November 11, 2017, which includes Atom, Enchantress, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) protagonists Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael. Atom was released on December 12, 2017; Enchantress was released on January 9, 2018; and lastly, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were released on February 13, 2018. Players can select which TMNT member to play as using the Gear System; equipping one of four weapons — katana, bō, nunchaku, or sai — swaps between Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael, each with their own unique move sets. In tournament and online modes, where Gear System loadouts cannot be used, players can choose each turtle individually through the character select screen. At one point, NetherRealm had considered developing a Fighter Pack 0, which would consist of returning characters from Injustice: Gods Among Us, including Ares, Batgirl, Doomsday, and Shazam; however, the idea did not come to fruition. In April 2019, two years after the game's release, Ed Boon revealed on Game Informer that he wanted to include Neo from The Matrix as a guest character, but plans fell through for his inclusion.

Related media

During NetherRealm Studios' Injustice 2 panel at San Diego Comic-Con on July 22, 2016, Boon announced a digital comic book series which will detail the backstory to the events of the game. The series is written by Tom Taylor, who had previously worked on the tie-in comic books for Injustice: Gods Among Us. Bruno Redondo is its lead artist, with contributing artwork from Juan Albarran, Daniel Sempere, and Mike S. Miller. Beginning on April 11, 2017, the series was released in weekly chapters through various digital retailers, including ComiXology, Google Play Books, the Kindle Store, and DC Comics' own mobile app. Print versions became available for purchase on May 3, 2017, each containing multiple digital chapters.

It was announced on April 26, 2018, that the game would cross over with Mattel's Masters of the Universe series as a comic sequel to the game's "Superman's side" ending. The comic received six issues, from July 18, 2018, until January 2, 2019.

Injustice 2: Legendary Edition

On February 28, 2018, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment announced Injustice 2: Legendary Edition. Similar to the Ultimate Edition for Injustice: Gods Among Us, the Legendary Edition includes all previously released downloadable content for Injustice 2. It also introduces new features, such as an expanded tutorial system called the "Learn Hub", new gear items, and an increased character level cap. In addition, those who pre-order the Day One Edition of the Legendary Edition received a collectible coin, a steelbook case, a "comic exclusive download steel card", and 11,000 Source Crystals to use in-game. The Legendary Edition was released on March 27, 2018, for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One.

Reception

Critical response

Injustice 2 received generally favorable reviews, according to Metacritic. Reviewers lauded Injustice 2's story and presentation. Eurogamer's Wesley Yin-Poole praised the game's narrative and visuals, describing them as "impressive" and a "significant step up" from Injustice: Gods Among Us. Yin-Poole commended the story mode on a technical level, praising the motion capture, action choreography, voice acting, and facial animations. Destructoid's Nick Valdez shared similar views, stating that the visuals were "leagues above the first title". Valdez also complimented the game's improved writing and "more engaging narrative". In contrast, while Game Revolution's James Kozanitis said the visuals were "absolutely jaw-dropping" and "set a new high bar for the [fighting game] genre", he lambasted the story campaign, which he labeled as "poorly written" and "contrived".

Reviewers also praised Injustice 2's improved gameplay mechanics and abundance of in-game content. Game Informer's Andrew Reiner praised the game's faster walk speed, the additions of the evasive roll and air recovery maneuvers, and the ability to block environmental attacks, stating that the game "[felt] tighter as a whole" and "offers a higher level of strategy". The Games Machine's Danilo Dellafrana stated that "the subtle changes to the combat system made for deeper gameplay". These points of praise were mirrored by IGN's Darry Huskey, who remarked that Injustice 2 "[struck] a fine balance between retaining the strengths of Gods Among Us and making smart changes to improve mechanics." Huskey applauded the "incredible amount of content", declaring that "hour for hour, Injustice 2 may have more content for solo players than any fighting game ever released." Reiner also praised the amount of content, acknowledging its "lengthy story-based campaign...great fighting experience, and...nearly endless supply of notable loot." Yin-Poole wrote that NetherRealm Studios "once again [proved] it's the best in the business at that old chestnut: content."

While the customization options offered by the Gear System received praise, critics expressed frustration with receiving random, undesired gear through loot drops and the game's microtransaction system. GameSpot's Peter Brown found collecting gear and outfitting characters to be enjoyable, stating that "watching a character's traditional outfit transform into something fresh or unexpected, and seeing their stats grow through leveling up and equipping gear, grants a satisfying sense of ownership over your accomplishments and possessions." On the other hand, Brown criticized the Gear System's use of currency, particularly Source Crystals, saying that spending real money seemed to be a "necessary evil" for players to have complete control over their inventories. Kotaku's Mike Fahey described the ability to create custom versions of characters as "quite satisfying"; however, he found the Gear System to be "complicated" and criticized the randomness in receiving desired costume pieces and equipment, uttering "sometimes random chance really sucks." VideoGamer.com's Alice Bell also called the microtransaction and loot systems "needlessly complex", which require players to keep track of several different types of currency. In contrast, Polygon's Michael McWhertor called the interface "elegant", enjoying the simplicity of managing and selling of gear for each character.

Sales

Injustice 2 topped the United Kingdom's multi-platform physical sales chart during its first two weeks after launch, with the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions simultaneously taking the first and second spots, respectively. This marked the first time a fighting game had taken the top spot since Mortal Kombat X in April 2015. Launch sales for the game in the United Kingdom were also roughly one-third higher than the debut of Injustice: Gods Among Us. Likewise, Injustice 2 was the top-selling game across all platforms in Australia and New Zealand during its first two weeks, and the best-selling game in the United States for the month of May 2017. It reached number 2 in Switzerland. It became the PlayStation Store's most downloaded PlayStation 4 title for May 2017, with Darkseid being the third best-selling DLC of the month. The Ultimate Pack and Fighter Pack 1 were both in the Top 10 downloads in June 2017. Three months later, Fighter Pack 2 also made the Top 10. By the end of May, Injustice 2 was the ninth best-selling game of 2017. Time Warner declared the game as "the highest-grossing console game in the second quarter of 2017," selling approximately 1.5 million copies in the first three months of its release. According to Ed Boon, as of August 2026 the game has sold 9 million units.

Awards

In June 2016, Injustice 2 received "Best of E3 2016" awards for "Best Fighting Game" from the Game Critics Awards, IGN, Game Informer, and GamesRadar. The game won "Best Fighting Game of 2017" awards from The Game Awards 2017, IGN, and Game Informer. IGN also nominated the game for "Best Xbox One Game" and "Best Spectator Game". The game was nominated for "Best International Game" at the 2017 Ping Awards, for "Best Xbox One Game" in Destructoid's Game of the Year Awards 2017, and for "Best Multiplayer Game" and "Studio of the Year" (NetherRealm) at the Golden Joystick Awards. In Game Informer's Reader's Choice Best of 2017 Awards, the game came in first place for "Best Fighting Game", third place for "Best Competitive Multiplayer" and fifth place for "Game of the Year". EGMNow ranked it eleventh on their list of the 25 Best Games of 2017, while GamesRadar+ ranked it 23rd on their list of the 25 Best Games of 2017. The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences awarded Injustice 2 with "Fighting Game of the Year", while also receiving a nomination for "Outstanding Achievement in Sound Design", at the 21st Annual D.I.C.E. Awards. It was also nominated for "Game, Franchise Fighting" at the 17th Annual National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers Awards.