DC Universe Online
DC Universe Online is a free-to-play massively multiplayer online game set in the fictional universe of DC Comics. Developed by Dimensional Ink Games and co-published by Daybreak Game Company and WB Games, the game was initially released in January 2011 for Windows and PlayStation 3. It was later released in November 2013 for PlayStation 4, April 2016 for Xbox One, August 2019 for Nintendo Switch, March 2024 for PlayStation 5, and October 2024 for Xbox Series X/S.
DC Universe Online was Arleen Sorkin's final performance, before her death on August 24, 2023.
Gameplay
The player creates a new, original character who interacts with the iconic heroes and villains of DC Comics. Players choose their character's faction, gender, body type, personality, movement mode, weapon, and power. Numerous hair, skin, and costume types are available, and up to 4 colors can be applied to the color scheme palette. Pre-built templates, inspired by some key DC characters, are available to expedite the character creation process.When the player's character is named, they are thrown into the world of DC Universe Online, with the first experience having to fight their way out of a Brainiac spaceship. The tutorial teaches basic movement and abilities, counter mechanics, and using power and skill points. Eventually, the player's character is made an official member of the Justice League or The Society, where they continue on their missions to increase their level and skill in various content. Daybreak Game Company is working to make DC Universe Online more interactive than standard MMO games, while trying to keep their key elements which include a leveling system, raid instances, endgame progression and inventories. The world is mainly a shared, public space. The public space features dynamically generated content designed for both hero and villain player characters to progress and fight alongside and against a multitude of iconic DC Comics characters, moving forward with stories, many of which come from the pages of DC's own comic books.
DC Universe Online has been actively updating through Game Updates and Hotfixes. Aside from bug fixes, several Game Updates involve Seasonal Events which provide special feats, styles, base items, overworld missions and instances exclusive to the time frame for which it runs, usually a month. There are three Events that tend to cycle throughout the year: Survival Mode, Legends PvE, and Stabilizer Fragment Instances. DC Universe Online offers downloadable content called Episodes, which expand the game universe with new, more difficult missions to progress that provide new stories or continuations of existing stories, new costume styles, and new equipment.
Plot
The opening cinematic takes place in a war-torn future depicting a final battle between the world's greatest heroes and villains. A future version of Lex Luthor provides voice-over narration. This battle takes place in the ruins of Metropolis. Luthor, wearing a heavy mech armor, commands an army of super-villains that includes Joker, Harley Quinn, Circe, Deathstroke, Black Adam, Giganta, Metallo and Poison Ivy. A scarred, armored Batman commands the heroes, which includes Cyborg, Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and Green Arrow. Both Poison Ivy and Green Arrow are shown dead at the beginning of the cut scene. The battle culminates with the death of Wonder Woman at Luthor's hands, at which point Superman hears her screams from orbit and flies to Earth to confront him. As Superman cradles Wonder Woman's dead body, he collapses to the ground and it is revealed that Luthor hid kryptonite pellets in her mouth as a trap. Luthor impales Superman with a kryptonite-tipped spear, and stands back to proclaim his victory only to see Brainiac's war fleet fill the skies.The scene then shifts to the present-day Watchtower, where the future Luthor, modified with Brainiac technology, is telling the story to the present-day Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Future Luthor explains that the war between the heroes and villains was triggered by the manipulations of Brainiac, who had been downloading their powers over time. With the planet's most powerful beings dead, Brainiac intended to use the pirated data to create an army of metahumans under his control, facilitating his conquest of Earth. As the sole survivor of the war, Luthor could do nothing to resist Brainiac's subjugation of the planet. Luthor explains that he was able to survive in secret and steal the stolen data and energy from Brainiac's mothership in the form of "exobytes". Luthor has traveled into his past to release the exobytes into the atmosphere of present-day Earth. The heroes are outraged, but Luthor explains that thousands of new metahumans will be created. He implores the Justice League to find and train these new metahumans, because Brainiac is coming and the Earth must be ready to succeed where it was once doomed to fail.
When this cinematic ends, the player is brought to the character creation menu to build their new Hero or Villain.
In the second trailer to the game "In Lex we Trust", it is revealed that Luthor's description of events leading up to his arrival in the present time is not as he described to the heroes. The trailer begins with Luthor reviving his companion Fracture from being unconscious. Luthor explains that Brainiac's forces have already penetrated the Fortress of Solitude and that their time is running out. As they approach a time portal chamber, a Brainiac Eradicator attacks and Fracture destroys the robotic drone with a small grenade. The two arrive at the portal which is being stabilized by Batman. As more Eradicators enter the chamber, as Luthor lies saying his armor is damaged and that he can not hold them off. Batman tells Fracture to take the canister that contains millions of exobytes and go through the portal, while attacking the Eradicators in order to buy him more time. Fracture thanks Luthor for using the exobytes to give him his powers. Seeing the opportunity he had been waiting for, Luthor kills Fracture describing him as "an excellent lab rat." Before Luthor steps into the portal, Batman calls to Luthor warning that "I'll be coming for you" to which Luthor responds "No, you won't" and activates a self-destruct sequence. Luthor enters the portal and the Fortress of Solitude suffers massive explosions. He arrives in a dark alley, presumably present day. He is greeted by his present-day self who describes him as being late.
At the end of "The Prime Battleground" raid, the present and future versions of Lex Luthor worked together to steal Brainiac's power. Luthor is then betrayed by Future Luthor, wanting the power for himself. It is then revealed Future Batman survived the explosion at the Fortress of Solitude and chased Future Luthor through time. Future Luthor escapes and Future Batman follows him. In the following cut-scene, Future Batman is said to be the last hope for humanity.
Following these events, the heroes led by Future Batman and villains led by Future Luthor to the "Nexus of Reality" both fight for control, using paradoxes from constant time-travels to alter the histories of iconic characters, forcing heroes and villains to work parallel to each other, changing the timelines in the same fashion. What one causes, the other reverts, thus making an infinite cycle. This results in a massive paradox creature that consumes time itself. In the raid, players must stop the creature from destroying the time-space continuum. This event partially ends the storyline the game was based upon, yet opens the possibility to enter many new realities.
Since then, there have been certain stories tied in reflecting the Arrowverse, with the introduction of Nanda Parbat, fighting alongside characters featured in Legends of Tomorrow, and a Supergirl Costume Legends character. Content from the DC Extended Universe has also been released. Other comic centered storylines feature "Sons of Trigon", "Blackest Night", "Amazon Fury", "Halls of Power", "Bombshells Paradox", "Bottle City of Kandor", "Harley Quinn", "Earth 3", "Teen Titans: The Judas Contract", "Justice League Dark", "Dark Nights: Metal" and Birds of Prey in Episodes.
Development
Concept art for the game was released on July 4, 2008, and the first trailer was released on July 14, 2008. Sony Online Entertainment's goal was to make a different kind of MMO game, with The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction cited as one of the main inspirations for gameplay.A beta was available from December 14, 2010, until January 5, 2011. There were a number of technical issues that came to light when the beta was closed, which were partially resolved by the game's release. EverQuest developers Chris Cao and Shawn Lord were involved. Chris Cao was the game director up to May 2011, since stepped down to be replaced by Mark Anderson, previously the art director. Mark Anderson has since been replaced by Jens Andersen, who was promoted to executive creative director of Daybreak Game Company with S.J. Mueller creative director. Comic artists Alé Garza, Carlos D'Anda, JJ Kirby, Oliver Nome, Eddie Nuñez, Livio Ramondelli, and Michael Lopez also contributed to the leveling content headlines and cutscenes. In August 2011, there was a global server merge implemented by the developers to consolidate all PC servers and PlayStation 3 servers into 4 individual servers, one for each platform per region. On September 19, 2011, it was announced that the game would go free-to-play on November 1, 2011, along with the addition of microtransactions. In mid-2013, as part of a hosting deal, accounts for the European PC version were sold to ProSiebenSat.1, however they were still capable of using the US servers. DC Universe Online was announced for the PlayStation 4 on June 5, 2013, along with PlanetSide 2, and was released November 15, 2013. After Sony Online Entertainment, had announced their All Access Membership changes, SOE and ProSiebenSat.1 parted ways, returning the accounts to SOE. All accounts are managed by Daybreak Game Company.
During the fifth anniversary livestream on January 11, 2016, it was announced that the two regional servers, US and EU would receive cross play, with players on PC able to play with players on the PlayStation version on the same server, only divided by region. An Xbox One version of the game was also announced on January 11, 2016, for release on April 29 of the same year, which launched on two separate regional servers that have since been consolidated into one XB server, not connected to the PC or PS versions of the game. On February 5, both USPC USPS servers were merged into one US server and EUPC and EUPS were merged into one EU server. The same restrictions of not being able to log into or transfer a PS account on PC and vice versa has been maintained.
On October 30, 2017, Daybreak Game Company stated the PlayStation 3 version would shut down on January 31, 2018, to focus on providing a better experience on the PlayStation 4. Utilizing the same PSN, a PlayStation 3 player can access their account on PlayStation 4.
On May 23, 2019, a Nintendo Switch version of the game was announced, set for Summer 2019, and has since released two separate regional USNS and EUNS servers on August 6, 2019.
On January 21, 2020, it was announced that the Daybreak Austin Studio that has developed the game since its conception would become their own studio, Dimensional Ink Games, that will continue developing DC Universe Online and a new high-profile next-generation action MMORPG, with Daybreak Games Company now acting in a publisher role.