Outright Games have many licensed games in their family friendly publishing collection already, including Fast & Furious: Spy Racers Rise of SH1FT3R, The Last Kids on Earth and the Staff of Doom, Ice Age: Scrat’s Nutty Adventure and Transformers: Battlegrounds to name just a few.
One of their upcoming releases, in collaboration with developers PHL Collective, is DC’s Justice League: Cosmic Chaos. I had the pleasure of attending a hands-off briefing event to see whether it’s shaping up to be an offering worth suiting up for.
DC’s Justice League: Cosmic Chaos is an open-world action-adventure featuring the legendary Justice League as they face off against a real handful of an enemy, Mr. Mxyzptlk. The ultimate prankster has arrived from the 5th Dimension to cause carnage in Happy Harbor. He’s brought a fair few fellow Super-Villains with him too, so our heroes must use all their might to restore peace. It’s time for Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman to save the day once more.
So, that’s the premise, but there’s a lot more for us to delve into as I found out many things during the online presentation. Guided by game producers Angel Sisson and Nick Madonna, we were shown the opening section of DC’s Justice League: Cosmic Chaos.
There are three playable characters: Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. It’s possible to switch between them on the fly as you fight against the villainous foes. Taking foes down is done by performing standard, ranged, and focused attacks alongside special moves. The opportunity is there to create combinations using such manoeuvres as well as their unique abilities. It’s possible for the Amazonian to use the Lasso of Truth, the Caped Crusader to throw a few batarangs and the Man of Steel to blast away threats with heat vision, all in succession.
Each hero possesses multiple unlockable and upgradeable abilities too, with elemental effects attached in a handful of cases like freezing breath and an electrified lasso. In addition, other Justice League members can be called in to offer combat support. Initially only Cyborg is on hand, however The Flash, Aquaman and Green Lantern are a shoe-in for later in the game.
The powers of the Justice League’s playable trio can be boosted further through acquiring Artifacts of Justice. These provide a range of passive perks and up to three of the Artifacts can be equipped per character. An example shown was Captain Atom’s X-Ionizer, which actually added damage to attacks against shielded enemies. There are many to find and each have historical importance in the comics, but they aren’t the only type of collectibles.
You see, Booster Gold has come from the future and in doing so has accidentally scattered his comic book collection all over Happy Harbor. Locating and retrieving the comic books will reward alternate costumes for our heroes to wear.
In regards to story missions, it appears as though it’s generally centred on arriving on scene and clearing house. That being said, one mission during the demo did feature a search for transportation tech upgrades to be able to use as a form of fast-travel. So, who knows what other kinds of objectives will be given to you. What’s clear though is how there’s a lot of freedom, even mid-mission, to just wander around Happy Harbor as much as you like. Whether you fly, glide, swing, or hop into any of the unattended vehicles to travel is entirely your choice.
In regards to the enemies, some of the earliest encountered are minions called fish monsters, but there are bigger and more dangerous baddies too. Obviously, expect to meet plenty of sub-bosses as well as Super-Villains like Starro the Conqueror, Clayface and Bizarro. A huge sea creature named Goliafish is the first sub-boss to battle and it actually buffs the nearby minions, making it trickier to focus on depleting its large health bar. The actual toughness depends on the difficulty chosen at the beginning, with five options ranging from Story to Heroic.
Speaking of story, the core of the narrative is told through 2D cinematics, showing off very cute versions of the characters everyone knows and loves. There seems to be a conscious effort to deliver silly visual humour and have lots of banter between the heroes. The cutesy art style is also kept for the action in the open-world and vibrant colours are used throughout Happy Harbor.
A massive thanks must go out to Outright Games and PHL Collective for the opportunity to attend the live demo event. Hopefully, we’ve been able to give you further insight into what to expect from DC’s Justice League: Cosmic Chaos. There’s certainly going to be lots to do in the open-world when it launches on 10th March for Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5 and PC through Steam. Keep an eye out for our full review to follow.
