Dana Snyder's Justice League
"Let's add some flair to this town! It's so boring."
— Mr. Mxyzptlk
Justice League: Cosmic Chaos is a video game based on the Justice League of DC Comics. Developed by PHL Collective and published by Outright Games, in association with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, it was released on March 10, 2023 for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and Windows via Steam.
An original story aimed at kids and families, you play as three of DC's biggest heroes Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, as the three of them are in pursuit of the the fifth-dimensional trickster Mister Mxyzptlk where he turns the town of Happy Harbor, Rhode Island into his personal Metropolis after declaring himself as Mayor.
Tropes:
- Big Bad: Mxyzptlk, who decides to cause the Justice League trouble For the Evulz.
- Crazy-Prepared: Batman installed tracking devices on each Justice League member in case of emergency. He did so via pretzels.
- Dialog During Gameplay: Whoever the player is controlling will constantly be spouting random one-liners when battling bad guys.
- Forgot About His Powers: Lampshaded. Superman rides with Wonder Woman and Batman on Cyborg's cycle mode, even though he can fly. When Wonder Woman calls him out on it, Superman replies that he didn't want to feel left out.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Booster Gold is this, as even Superman can barely tolerate his presence. This doesn't apply to Skeets, though.
- Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: In addition to the standard Easy, Normal, and Hard, there's are also "Story," which makes the game Easier Than Easy so one can simply enjoy the story, and "Heroic," which is the game's Harder Than Hard mode.
- Kryptonite Factor: Lampshaded. Mxy asks Superman what his favorite food is. Batman warns him not to answer, but Superman is compelled to answer "pretzels," which causes Mxy to turn he, Batman, and Wonder Woman into pretzels. When the other two give him a Death Glare, Superman replies that "Pretzels are my kryptonite," which causes Batman to respond "Kryptonite is your kryptonite!"
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: When Cyborg accesses the Mount Justice computer, he notes that Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman are close to "leveling up" and "unlocking some new special ability," though he doesn't know what that means, chalking it up to another Mxyzptlk thing.
- Lighter and Softer: Compared to most other DC games at the time, such as Gotham Knights (2022) and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.
- Lip Lock: The in-game cutscenes have the characters' mouths moving constantly, regardless of what they're actually saying, so a simple sentence can see well over a dozen mouth movements, with no regard to pauses and the like.
- Miles Gloriosus: Booster Gold boasts of fighting off the various fish monsters valiantly, but Skeets nonchalantly reveals that they immediately ran and hid somewhere instead.
- Mind Control: Thanks to Starro, Flash, Aquaman, and Green Lantern are turned into bad guys for a while.
- Mythology Gag:
- The lineup for the Justice League is the same as what was intended to be the final lineup for the DC Extended Universe under Zack Snyder: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Aquaman, Cyborg, and the John Stewart Green Lantern.note
- Most of the Justice League's default outfits are based on their DC Rebirth outfits, while Mxy is based on his Superfriends design and John Stewart is based on his Justice League design.
- Superman's favorite food is pretzels with mustard, which is comic-accurate.
- Mxy says that Starro was the Big Bad who brought the Justice League together for the first time, which is what happened in the comics.
- Starro himself is based on his design from The Suicide Squad.
- The game includes a number of alternate costumes from previous adaptations of the characters as well as various comic iterations.
- Reality Warper: Mxyzptlk is here, so of course. In the opening cutscene alone he causes multiple old villains to appear, turns the Justice League into pretzels, and warps the Keystone City into an amalgamation of various worlds.
- Shapeshifting: Cyborg has the ability to do this, most notably by turning into a hover cycle for the other heroes to ride.
- Shout-Out: One of Wonder Woman's lines is "One small step for me, one giant leap for justice!"
- Written Sound Effect: Defeating enemies causes these to pop up.
