“DC Heroes United” is keeping its story alive with a new feature launch.
“DC Heroes United” is the latest production by Genvid, a company that builds technology to combine gaming with interactive streaming experiences. The core of the project — which is licensed by Warner Bros. Interactive entertainment on behalf of DC and features popular DC Comics characters like Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman — is a mobile game that Genvid released on November 20, 2024.
Players in “DC Heroes United” are able to vote on the outcome of the game’s in-universe story, with Genvid translating players’ choices into narrative media properties like the “DC Heroes United” streaming series. Since its launch, over a million users have played “DC Heroes United,” according to Genvid CEO Jacob Navok in an interview with GamesBeat.
Yesterday, February 19, “DC Heroes United” kicked off the next phase of its story by introducing a new in-game feature called Story Maps. Genvid has regularly released new in-game maps and levels inside “DC Heroes United,” but until now, those maps have focused on gameplay and did not include narrative elements. Moving forward, the game’s Story Maps will include explicit story elements intended to resolve cliffhangers from last year and move the narrative forward.
“Part of the reason that we’ve done this is we’ve found that you will get large television viewership, and you will get really large game viewership, but they actually don’t necessarily overlap as much as we had expected,” Navok said. “You get a lot of people who are playing the game — they like roguelikes — but they don’t want to watch seven hours of television to understand what’s going on.”
The first Story Maps will cover elements of the narrative that have already taken place, with the goal of helping new audience members catch up with the “DC Heroes United” story without having to watch hours of prior content. After that, Story Maps will continue to arrive regularly in the game with new characters, plotlines and potential choices.
The story of “DC Heroes United” combines an overarching narrative written by leading comics writers like Gail Simone and Brian Buccellato with choices determined by fan voting, resulting in a very different DC universe from what audiences are used to seeing from the Justice League. The narrative starts off with Lex Luthor as a member of the Justice League, and only diverges further from the norm from that point. At this stage of the story, Lois Lane has broken up with Clark Kent, Wonder Woman has defeated Superman in combat and Batman has been forced to reveal his greatest fear, among other plot points.
Story Maps represent a relatively efficient and low-to-the-ground way for Genvid to continue the “DC Heroes United” narrative — and thus keep players’ in-game choices relevant and important — without having to operate on the timeline of a fully animated television series. Although Genvid has had scripts and recorded voice lines prepared for the second season of “DC Heroes United” since last year, the series hasn’t released a new episode since December 2024, with Navok blaming animation studios’ long production processes for this delay. Story Maps provide Genvid with the opportunity to advance the narrative on their own schedule.
“We’re still waiting for that second season to animate, but you’re going to be able to participate in story decisions and see what’s coming in the second season through the Story Maps,” Navok said. “Starting from map five in around March, you’re going to get the continuation of that storyline while we wait for the episodes to come.”