A sudden assault threatens the DC Multiverse. All realities stand on the brink of annihilation. Now, the last hope for Earth lies in the powers of the DC legends.
Infinite Crisis, while potentially referring to the series of comics from the same franchise, was also a Multiplayer Online Battle Arena game for PC, developed by Turbine and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, running for only five months in 2015. Different DC characters battled it out on objective based maps. The gameplay? Essentially League of Legends with some small tweaks, some imaginative champion kits, and a coat of DC paint. You might hear that comparison a lot, as a lot of the game's design choices pretty much come straight from that game.
The game's initial mode was "Gotham Heights", based on dominion. Five control points scattered the map, and while weaker drones did their part to push towards them, it was the task of two teams of five champions to battle it out to control the majority of the points long enough to destroy the enemy team's core. Their extra take on this was the 'orbital cannon'. Every now and then, a sixth control point opened up; capturing it deployed more powerful drones to help capture points, and bombed the area with meteors, making it harder for the enemy team to navigate down beneficial paths.
Since release, they also added "Coast City", a two-lane map with a slightly similar gameplay to League's Twisted Treeline in a different layout, "Gotham Divided", a three-lane map that actually had both unique layout and mechanics, and "Crime Alley", a 1 vs 1 or AI bot map used for practice or duels.
One more thing worth mentioning about the game is that, true to the theme of Infinite Crisis, you had access to champions from different universes, which in this game were separate characters from their Prime universe counterparts, playing entirely different roles at times.
The core universes this game takes place in were:
- Prime (Earth-0): The keystone of The Multiverse, this is the universe that all the others are derivatives of.
- The playable champions of this universe are Superman, Supergirl, Doomsday, Krypto the Superdog, Lex Luthor, Batman, Robin, the Joker, Catwoman, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Green Lantern, Star Sapphire, Atrocitus, Sinestro, Solomon Grundy, The Flash, Green Arrow, Cyborg, Blue Beetle, Wonder Woman, Shazam!, Stargirl, Hawkgirl, Aquaman, Zatanna, Swamp Thing, and Katana.
- Arcane (Earth-13): A universe of swords and sorcery.
- The champions of this universe are Green Lantern and Supergirl.
- Atomic (Earth-17): A universe in which Kal-El's arrival on Earth during the Cold War resulted in nuclear doomsday.
- The champions of this universe are Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, the Joker, and Poison Ivy.
- Gaslight (Earth-19): A Steampunk universe.
- The champions of this universe are Batman, the Joker, and Catwoman.
- Nightmare (Earth-43): A horror universe.
- The champions of this universe are Batman, Superman and Robin.
- Mecha (Earth-44): A universe of Ridiculously Human Robot heroes.
- The champions of this universe are Superman and Wonder Woman.
There was also an official tie-in comic series, Infinite Crisis: Fight for the Multiverse, released digital-first.
Shortly after launching on Steam in March 2015, Turbine decided to shut the game server down in August 2015. Some DC heroes managed to appear in another MOBA (Arena of Valor) but the Infinite Crisis was solved overall... for the DC Universe. Something similar would happen in the rival publisher's multiverse instead...
The Infinite Crisis video game is an example of:
- An Adventurer Is You: Probably one of the more interesting aspects of the game is how they've boiled down these heroes and villains to a particular stat-based archetype with four abilities and a passive. They even categorize them with particular naming patterns (Bruiser, Marksman, Blaster, Enforcer, etc.)
- Ascended Meme: "SoCal Hal
" wears a green version of Scumbag Steve's hat. - Badass Normal: So far a handful of decidedly non-super characters that are playable, most of which are Batman characters, especially if they're the regular Prime sort. They might have the help of the artifacts they buy to buff their stats, but they still have to stand toe to toe with the superpowered. And they're pretty good at it.
- Bribing Your Way to Victory: Averted in much the same way League of Legends does by way of holding either cosmetic stuff off for money, or the champions which you can get anyway. Except for two things, which even then is pretty much just a time-saver. Stolen Powers, which have upgraded versions specific to certain champions (Playing that champion long enough unlocks it for every champion. You get one for free every 5 protector levels.) and Amplifiers, which are divided in Mods (Mods provide bonuses or price discounts to certain artifacts in matches.) and Augments (Augments work in a similar way to League of Legends' runes. You also get to choose one of three different augments for free each time your protector level goes up.) but each champion comes with their own default Amplifier sets, meaning you only need to adquire more if you wish to make a special build. Both can only be purchased with Merit, the currency obtained by playing matches.
- Broad Strokes: Several of the universes present are based somewhat on existing worlds in the DC Multiverse.
- Earth-13 was featured Countdown: Arena #1
- Earth-17, however, is In Name Only with the only thing they have in common is a war causing society to crumble, as in the comics version, it's the world Kamandi calls home.
- Earth-19 is the universe where, as the name suggests, Gotham by Gaslight is set in. However, the game introduces version of the Joker and Catwoman, who didn't appear in the story.
- Earth-43 is the universe the Batman Vampire trilogy is set in, with Countdown Presents: The Search for Ray Palmer: Red Rain revealing that the Batman of that universe turned Dick Grayson into a vampiric Robin and The Multiversity shows the whole Justice League as vampires. The game's version replaces Dracula and Dick Grayson with Ra's al Ghul and Damian Wayne in the respective roles of being the one who turned Batman into a vampire and the vampire Robin, and Superman is heavily altered after a trip to the Phantom Zone instead of being a vampire himself.
- Earth-44 appeared in Final Crisis, only with Clark Kent and Hippolyta replacing Doc Tornado (a human verison of Red Tornado) as the creators of Superman and Wonder Woman respectively.
- Casting Gag:
- Nolan North, who voiced Green Lantern in Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, voices Green Lantern's Atomic counterpart.
- Steve Blum and James Arnold Taylor, who respectively voiced Batman and Robin/Nightwing in the first LEGO Batman, voice the characters' repsective Nightmare counterparts. Simiarly, Travis Willingham and Laura Bailey, who respectively voice Superman and Wonder Woman in the second and third games, voice the characters' Mecha counterparts.
- Chainsaw Good: Atomic Wonder Woman's one and only source of damage is through her almighty chainsaw polearm. It doesn't half make a noise either. When she uses her ultimate, 'Reclaimer', you can hear the noise it makes from all the way across the map in the form of an almost haunting echo.
- Composite Character: Given the Nightmare universe is loosely based on Batman Vampire trilogy, Ra's al Ghul and Damian Wayne take the respective roles held by Dracula and Dick Grayson in the original story and its spin-offs (namely, being the one who turned that world's Batman into a vampire and being a Robin that's a vampire, respectively).
- Crapsack World: Quite a few of them, and the effects on their respective heroes aren't pretty. One only needs to look at the Atomic or Nightmare 'verse heroes.
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Follow the Leader: Yet another MOBA that follows the League of Legends formula. - Mana Meter: In this game, mana is referred to as 'Will'. Much like League of Legends, the majority of characters use this for casting abilities, but others either have their own resource or none at all.
- Batman, Nightmare Batman, and Shazam use Energy, which functions exactly the same way as it does in League. It's a fixed cap resource that regenerates quickly, meaning characters that use it won't go short on it unless they burn all of their abilities at once, and usually have some form of energy return.
- Doomsday uses Fury, but doesn't need it until he unlocks his ultimate ability, which requires a full fury meter to use.
- Gaslight Joker uses his own health when casting.
- Atomic Wonder Woman is a unique case. She has no true resource, but her resource meter instead displays the status of her passive, which gives her a revved up status every two spellcasts that damage an enemy unit, supplying her next ability with additional effects.
- Atrocitus as well does not need a resource to use his abilities. Instead, he has a "rage" meter that fills up when he damages an enemy with a Basic Attack or whenever he, himself, takes damage. When he has at least 50% rage, his next skill becomes enraged and has additional effects.
- Moveset Clone: A lot of abilities are going to be familiar to players from other MOBA games. For instance, Swamp Thing's "Vine Leash" is similar to Ares' "Shackles" from Smite and Wonder Woman's "Blocking Bracers" is similar to Galio's "Idol of Durand" from League of Legends. The most obvious example, though, is Supergirl, who is extremely similar to Vi: a passive that increases the damage output of your basic attacks the longer you hit the same target, a basic attack buff that does damage in a cone behind the next target you hit, a dash that stops at and knocks down the first enemy champion hit, and an ultimate that allows them to charge to a target and knock them up doing a large amount of damage while also knocking up other enemies in her path.
- Robot Names: The Mecha universe heroes. Superman is a Kryptonian Artificial Lifeform, or K.A.L. and Wonder Woman is D1A-NA.
- Story and Gameplay Segregation: Each character, no matter the nature of their powers or whatever else, will have to have their abilities compressed into the passive and four abilities formula, and balanced to be able to fight all of the other characters. This makes for some large differences between their story representation and their ingame representation. For example, Batman and Doomsday going toe to toe.
- Justified by the game's lore, that everyone was affected by the Bleed, losing a large portion of their powers, putting them all more or less at the same power level.
- Support Power: 'Stolen Powers'. A small selection of abilities that you can take with you into battle alongside your character's powers. Some champions have upgraded versions of these powers unique to them, and can be unlocked for others if that champion is played enough.
- Sword Drag: Atomic Wonder Woman does this with her chainsaw while charging towards her target during her ultimate, using it to propel herself foward even faster.
