Injustice: Evil Among Us

Evil is relative.

Tagline

Injustice: Evil Among Us is a spin-off, crossover game based on Injustice: Gods Among Us and Injustice 2 made by 50A Studios. Built upon the legendary Unreal Engine 4, this game features characters from several famous franchises in realistic details. But what sets it apart with its main inspirations and base is that the characters from this game are mostly villains or anti-villains, at least. The game does have a gear system of sorts, but it is simplified by converting the system into alternate costumes or skins that are capable of changing the gameplay of one character or even changing one character's voice and appearance completely, as well as altering some of his or her moves. The game also features its own story mode with multiple alternate endings. The game is available only on PS4 and Xbox One. Later on, the game is made backwards compatible with Xbox 360 and PS3. This game also has additional works by Bat24, Coolot1, and GazzaB9.

The game has a sequel, Injustice: Evil Among Us 2, released several years after this game.

Plot

Main article: Injustice: Evil Among Us/Story Mode

Taking place and time in a dark universe filled with many locations from different universes mashed-up, the story of this game follows villains from numerous different timelines, dimensions, and universes being abducted by a multiversal cosmic entity that embodies evil named Chaos. Captured in order to entertain Chaos himself, the villains are forced to fight each other in a universal war to prove their strength to the entity. Unknown to them, Chaos does not want to entertain himself, but to seek out the strongest and most evil villain in the multiverse for him to use as his herald in his plan to destroy his sister and opposite, Order, and eventually overthrow multiverses as well as their creator and Order and Chaos' parent, Creation. In doing so, Chaos will reign supreme in all realities that exist and will exist, with evil plaguing endlessly. But when one of the villains found out about his plan and the potential destruction caused to the villains' universes, the villains must unite against Chaos and try to escape his grasp. However, with the ongoing in-fighting between the villains and the risk of losing their status as "real" villains by facing the embodiment of the evil they are supposed to be, things will not go easy in their quest.

Gameplay

Base Gameplay

Injustice: Evil Among Us' gameplay resembles those of Injustice 2, but with several additions from its gameplay predecessor, Mortal Kombat X. The game features the same "power bar" as those of the two aforementioned games. But now, the bar's meter is extended from having three meters into five meters. With that, the player is capable of doing even more meter burn moves to extend their combos and inflict heavier damage. Unfortunately, meter burn versions of the villains' moves don't always exist. Not all villains have all their special moves capable of being meter burned, and each villains' special moves have different amounts of bar to perform a meter burn. However, a feature from MKX is adapted into this game to compensate for that. Adapting from its X-Ray Attacks, this game features its own version called Critical Strike. When Super Moves require all five bars to perform, Critical Strikes require four bars, but can be meter burned for extra effects. This kind of move however, is not entirely independent. To perform a Critical Strike, the villain must connect it with either a throw or after the successful attack after doing a Clash. By pressing L1+R1 or LB+RB on PS4 and Xbox, respectively, the villain will perform a short cinematic-like attack similar to a Super Move, but not as long or as damaging as such move. When meter burned, the villain will add an extra attack to the Critical Strike. However, even if it's meter burned Super Moves deal more damage. Critical Strikes function simply to add a continuation to an attack that's initiated after a throw or breaking a Clash. The Critical Strike's damage is 20% weaker than a Super Move, and 15% weaker with meter burn.

As an addition, as well, the player can initiate a combo breaker that has a cost depending on the nature of the combo attack. The player can initiate a combo breaker with only one bar when attacked by a normal, melee combo. However, the player needs two bars to do a combo breaker when interrupting a Critical Strike (yes, Critical Strikes are capable of being interrupted using a combo breaker). However, there can only be four combo breakers in a round for each villains. Combo breakers also deal only a tiny bit of damage, simply dealing 3% damage to the health bar.

Just for an extra, the percentage of a character's health in a battle is 200%. 100% for the first one, and another 100% for the second, red-coloured health bar.

Currency and Lockboxes

Injustice: Evil Among Us also features in-game currency, simply known as credits. These credits are used to purchase other unlockable characters when the player does not want to bother with the challenges to unlock them, or buy alternate costumes for them that can alter the way they play, but still keeping them in the field of balance. These alternate costumes, along with other collectibles such as concept arts, custom background to identify the player in multiplayer, as well as nicknames are also available in the store via the Lockboxes. These Lockboxes are essentially the Mother Boxes of the mobile version of Injustice 2, being able to be used to purchase unique collectibles and costumes for a cheaper price. However, it comes at a cost of being very unpredictable, which means that not at all times the player will get what he/she wants from the Lockbox. Items that players already have that are gained by them will be converted to credits. However, most of these "items" themselves are alternate costumes, and the refund gained is moderately large. Concept arts, custom background, and nicknames, however, are all exclusive to the Lockboxes.

Lockboxes come in three different versions, which are Basic, Upgraded, and Perfect. Upgraded Lockboxes have a greater chance in rarer alternate costumes (yes, alternate costumes have their own rarity, like other collectibles), nicknames, and custom backgrounds. Concept arts are nearly always guaranteed to be gained in purchasing this type of Lockbox. Perfect Lockboxes will always bestow the player collectibles with rarity even above rare (Super Rare, Ultra Rare). Most Perfect Lockboxes give you alternate costumes. However, that doesn't mean you won't get nicknames or backgrounds there. From the Basic Lockbox (1,000 credits), it will grant you three items with high chances of those being of normal rarity. Upgraded (5,000 credits) grants five items with better chances of items with greater rarity, and Perfect grants you seven items with rarity at least of Rare, with Super Rare and Ultra Rare following it. Super Rare and Ultra Rare items however, will not exist together in one Lockbox opening in one occasion. So one Perfect Lockbox could only grant at least two Super Rare items, with the other items being Rare. In terms of rarity, here are their ranks:

Common (Worth 500-1,000 credits)
Uncommon (Worth 1,500-2,000 credits)
Rare (Worth 2,500-3,000 credits)
Super Rare (Worth 3,500-7,000 credits)
Ultra Rare (Worth 7,500-10,000 credits)
Impossible (Worth 50,000 credits)

The last rarity, Impossible, is added when the first seasonal character (see the next section) is made available to the general player community. Impossible-ranked items are usually an alternate costume for the seasonal character, capable of being purchased for a limited time in a Seasonal Lockbox themed around the seasonal character. In the Seasonal Lockbox, the player has greater chances of getting items of rank Rare and above, with normal and uncommon items being nearly non-existent.

The Store

This is where the player can access elements such as purchasing alternate costumes, nicknames, backgrounds, Lockboxes, and even trade with others. With the many variations and rarities of items (mostly alternate costumes) in this game, Injustice: Evil Among Us allows players from online communities to trade items with each other. When trading, the player must trade one item for another with an item that has an equal amount of worth. However, if one player does not have a single item worth another item with a greater level of worthiness (e.g., Uncommon>Normal), the player can trade more than one item to compensate. Trading characters was initially non-existent. But after the first Battle Season update, players can trade characters until they have possessed all the characters in the game.

Individually, the player can normally buy items in the store based on their rarity. Like the Tower of Power mode (see next section), every items in the store will refresh daily, with only Super Rare items showing up occasionally. Compared to Lockbox items, individual items in the store are much more expensive, but more "controllable", even if it's still random (it's still less random compared to Lockboxes). To increase the chances of the player's wanted item's appearance, the player can set his/her preferred items in the settings. The preference here is in the sense that which character the player wants to have his/her/its alternate appearance in the inventory.

In some cases, the game can give discounts on several items available on the store to be purchased, with the discounts ranging from 10% to a whopping 50%. Usually, these discounts are given at the end of a Battle Season or in certain celebratory times.

The player can refresh the set of items offered at the store (ten items per set provided daily) using credits for three times. Starting at 500 credits, later it goes up to 1,500 credits and then finally, 2,500 credits. After the last and third refresh, the player must wait for the next day to come.

Game Modes

Story Mode/Campaign
Battle Mode: In here, players are capable of fighting against either computer-controlled enemies or engage in head-to-head combat against your friend with another controller in the same place.
- Versus: Your basic, one-on-one combat mode that has four types of difficulty.
  - General: The easiest difficulty in the mode, the player should have no problem taking down the enemy within minutes without even thinking much. However, it rewards the least amount of credits (500).
  - Lord: The medium difficulty, warrior mode presents even more challenge to players as a step-up from General. Granting 1,500 credits, the player must be more careful in defeating the enemy. The AI is improved from underling difficulty, allowing it to perform more complex combos.
  - Overlord: When Lord is apparently too easy for the player to beat, Overlord will provide even more challenge with the AI's skills even rivaling those of players in the skill level of intermediate to high. This time, the player must quickly decide whether they have to attack or defense against the onslaught of attacks the enemy delivers. Rewards 2,500 credits.
  - Conqueror: The hardest difficulty, Conqueror essentially delivers the same amount of difficulty as the enemies the player faces in the multiplayer. Nearly completely unpredictable, Conqueror's AI is almost impossible to beat unless the player is crafty enough to beat it. While each step-up in difficulty grants 1,000 more credits, conqueror doesn't, and grants 5,000 credits for the player if he/she wins.
- Survival: If a player does not want to face the horrors of Conqueror mode, the player can gain more credits in this mode. Simply survive against wave after wave of enemies and credits are added to your inventory. The health bar will not regenerate per round, but the player has two chances to retry the round that he/she got lost. Everytime the round progresses, the difficulty increases while the amount of credits you get also increase by 200.
- Tower of Power: Both the Multiverse and Living Towers mode from Injustice 2 and Mortal Kombat X, respectively, the Tower of Power is an arcade mode similar to survival but more limited. While versus mode allows you to play as the villains you unlock and pit them against all the options of villains, the Tower of Power tests your gameplay proficiency against varying sets of opponents with some stages having their own challenges and modifiers. These modifiers can either hinder you, or give you a slight advantage. Stages with modifiers usually reward more credits. And if there's a challenge that you complete in the stage, you will be rewarded even more. Every day, the Tower of Power will refresh its collection (there are five towers that you can enter daily), and no set of Tower of Power is the same as the set the day before, or after. Every successful win you get, the amount of credits you receive will increase by 100.
Multiplayer: The gateway to face other villains controlled by players similar to you, multiplayer allows you to prove your own skills against other players with the credits received depending on how you perform. Do note that these performance multipliers also apply in other modes.
- Win: 1,000 credits.
- Lose: 500 credits.
- Tie: 450 credits for both players.
- Perfect Win (no health lost) or Impossible Win (winning with only 25% health): +500 credits.
- Finishing Blow (win the match by using the Critical Strike): 400 credits.
- Execution (win the match by using the Super Move): 350 credits.
- Superiority (win the match by finishing the enemy as the attacker during Clash): 350 credits.
Collision: An alternative to the normal one-on-one fight in Multiplayer, Collision is a two-on-one or two-on-two battle that involves two or more players. This alternative multiplayer mode is introduced at the start of Battle Season 2. In the two-on-one version, called Escalation brings in two players that play two villains in the same screen against one powerful AI-controlled character with stats drastically higher than its playable counterpart. Two-on-two on the other hand, called Devastation, plays similar to Street Fighter X Tekken, but with four players. Character introductions will not be modified for Devastation even if it's a two-on-two, with the first and third player's characters doing the intro. In the first part of the battle with the first health bar, the first and third player engages in combat until one of them reaches the second health bar and gets knocked out. Then, the second and fourth player continues the fight. This can end up being a one-on-two situation, but winning in such occasion can be greatly rewarding. Collision does affect one's ranking in the leaderboard during a Battle Season, but on a lesser scale than the one-on-one mode. When victorious, the winning pair will get credits and extra score to progress through the leaderboard. However, it should be noted that the players will not advance to the same rank together.
- Boss Rush: A variation of the Escalation mode added after the conclusion of the first Battle Season, Boss Rush is possibly the hardest mode in this game, even above Versus mode's Conqueror difficulty. Boss Rush, like what the name says, pits two player-controlled villains against one more powerful villain, round after round. What sets it apart from Escalation mode is that the players' characters here act like in Devastation mode, but the players can tag-in and out of combat whenever they want with a five-second cooldown. The mode consists of seven rounds, with five rounds pitting the players against "normal" villains while the sixth round pitting them against a "rare" villain, even seasonal characters. The seventh and last round however, pits the players against the mode's exclusive, non-playable villains that are usually enormous in size, making throws, Critical Strikes, Clashes, or even Super Moves not work against them. An exception to both the unplayable nature of the villains and the inability to do the aforementioned thing is Nemesis T-Type, who is added to the main game roster a week after Boss Rush was added. The initial "boss" battled in the first stage has normal stats (100%). The next bosses will have significanty larger amount of stats, which are 110%, 125%, 150%, 165%, 180%, and finally 200%. The players have three chances to restart the match they're stuck on. But if the chances are all wasted, the mode is finished and the players will get rewards according to their efforts. Even when they stop at 125%, the rewards are still moderately big. When retrying a round, the boss' health will persist, allowing you to deliver even more damage.

Battle Seasons

In order to expand the dynamics of the game, through the multiplayer mode, comes the Battle Seasons. With this, players will compete against each other to fight for the leaderboard. In the leaderboard, only the best of the best can get the rewards of credits and alternate costumes of their choice. But the prime reward, which is only bestowed to ranks 1-30, is the new character of the season. At the end of the season (which usually lasts for a month), a brand new character will be given to the "winners" of the season. When received, in all modes, the seasonal character will be added to an extra row of character slots, which are mostly placeholders due to the amount of seasons coming and characters to decide on. Until the next season starts, the seasonal character will have a special brand with the winner's rank in the leaderboard on their select screen, indicating their recent nature. Since there are only 30 players out there with the seasonal character, encountering one would mean that the player's facing one of the best players in the game. Luckily, a week after the season ends, the character will be able to be purchased for 40,000 credits, losing the special brand in process. Seasonal characters usually only have one or two alternate costumes with extreme rarity, and purchasing those costumes/skins at the store would be very risky, as they are immensely expensive. Former seasonal characters that are already available generally can also be obtained via tasks, like any other characters.

For the list of seasonal characters, see the playable characters section.

Battle Season Rewards

Rank 1-30: Seasonal character and 30,000 credits.
Rank 31-60: Two Perfect Lockboxes and 20,000 credits.
Rank 61-90: One Perfect Lockbox, one three Upgraded Lockboxes, and 10,000 credits.
Rank 91-120: Two Upgraded Lockboxes, six Basic Lockboxes, and 5,000 credits.
Rank 121-150: Five Basic Lockboxes and 3,000 credits.
The rest of the participants: Three Basic Lockboxes and 12,000 credits*.

(*) While the participants that are not at least ranked in the leaderboard at 150 gain more credits than those that are ranked 61-150, those credits are still not too much as worthy as the other prizes given away to the "top" ranked players.

Tag Team Tournament

Added after the second Battle Season, Tag Team Tournament is essentially similar to a Battle Season, albeit using the Collision mode instead of the normal one-on-one fights. Progressing through this tournament may be harder, but the prize for the winners is bestowed upon even more players than a normal Battle Season. "Harder" in the sense that finding the players to fight in the tournament might be harder to find. In the TTT, the only Collision mode being able to be used to progress through the leaderboard is the Devastation mode. Unlike Battle Seasons, however, Tag Team Tournaments are only done once a year, usually near the end of a year.

The prize character of the TTT will be given to players of rank 1-100, and will be made available to the general player base in a month. However, the price of the character is significantly cheaper than a Battle Season character, costing 30,000 credits. Not just that, TTT prize characters do not have tasks that need to be completed in order to gain them.

Playable Characters

Main Game

These fighters are already unlocked from the start, and they are able to be customized or used to unlock other characters that are not yet available to be used.

Sauron
Green Goblin
Darth Vader
Freddy Krueger
Atrocitus
Skeletor
Voldemort
Imhotep
M. Bison
Shao Kahn

Unlockables

At the start of the game, not all characters are unlocked and those that are unavailable are able to be unlocked by either buying them with the in-game credits or performing certain tasks. All the villains have the same cost in unlocking them, numbering at 20,000 credits (except for the first mandatory unlockable villain, Magneto). As such, only the tasks will be informed down below. Also, do note that not all of the characters here appear in the story mode.

Magneto (Obligatory unlock after finishing the first chapter of the story mode. Costs 1/10 the price of the normal unlockable cost)
Vandal Savage (Accumulate a total time of playing of 10 hours)
Steven Armstrong (Defeat the character in survival mode three times)
Albert Wesker (Win 20 matches in multiplayer)
Doctor Doom (Win five matches in multiplayer with Superiority)
Loki (Perform 200 projectile attacks in any modes)
Darth Sidious (Score six perfect wins with Darth Vader)
Venom (Survive for seven rounds in survival mode)
Akuma (Win five matches in multiplayer with Finishing Blow)
Jason Voorhees (Defeat the character with Freddy Krueger three times in versus mode)
Frieza (Play the game for five consecutive days)
Lex Luthor (Win two battles in any mode without blocking)
Red Skull (Defeat the character in the story mode)
General Grievous (Choose the first option in the story mode's last chapter)
Beerus (Choose the second option in the story mode's last chapter)
The Joker (Choose the third option in the story mode's last chapter)
Mongul (Activate the Critical Strike and the Super Move of a villain in a round in one health bar. Do this five times in any mode)
Lucifer (Score a ten-streak of victories in the multiplayer, winning all of them with Execution and Impossible Win)
Maleficent (In three multiplayer matches, cancel out an opponent's Super Move by avoiding or blocking it, then counter it with your own Super Move)
Amon (Score three ties in Multiplayer in a row)
Harley Quinn (Survive ten waves of enemies in Survival mode using the Joker)
Kazuya Mishima (Survive five waves of enemies in Survival mode without losing any health)
Broly (In Versus, win six battles of Conqueror difficulty)
Jinpachi Mishima (Score six perfect wins with Kazuya Mishima)
Ogre (Perform twenty consecutive hits on the enemy without being hit by a combo breaker in two matches)
Asajj Ventress (After losing a battle, find the player you lost to and defeat him/her with Execution)
Ultron (Survive five waves in Survival mode, finishing all the enemies with Superiority)
Maris Brood (Defeat any lightsaber-wielding villain three times in Multiplayer)
Lady Blaze (Activate 20 stage interactables in five matches)
Ozai (Score fifteen Perfect Wins in a row in VERSUS mode, Overlord difficulty)
Cell (Finish three stages in a Tower of Power without using a Super Move or losing health in the second bar)
Durge (Successfully endure 20 enemy Super Moves without dying)
Juggernaut (Get hit 300 times)
Darth Maul (Defeat Darth Sidious or Darth Vader five times for each villains in Survival mode)
Black Manta (Win 50 Clashes in all game modes)
Skynet (Defeat all robotic villains 10 times)
Shinnok (Score three Perfect Wins in Multiplayer, finishing the enemies with Execution)
MODOK (Compete 50 achievements)
Reverse-Flash (Defeat an enemy in an Overlord-difficulty versus mode within two minutes)
Goro (Win three versus matches in Overlord difficulty in a row. Restarts are allowed)
Bane (Endure 15 Critical Strikes while in 50% health without dying)
Deathstroke (Survive 20 waves of enemies in Survival mode)
Seth (Win 50 Clashes)
Nemesis T-Type (Beat a Boss Rush match once)
Chaos (Finish the story mode)

Seasonal Characters (Normal)

Season 1: Orson Krennic (Score 20 Executions in Survival Mode)
Season 2: Doomsday (Make four comeback victories against four characters that defeated you in Multiplayer)
Season 3: Pinhead (Defeat every character in the game in Multiplayer)

Seasonal Characters (Tag Team Tournament)

Year 1: Darkseid
Year 2: Reaper

Exclusive Characters

"Exclusive" characters here is in sense that instead of pre-order bonus characters, both PS4 and Xbox One/360 consoles have their own set of exclusive characters. In both of these consoles, the characters do not require tasks or credits to unlock. They're available from the start of the game.

PS3/PS4

Zoran Lazarevic
Hades

Xbox 360/Xbox One

General RAAM
Tartarus

Free Characters

Usually added after a Battle Season, free characters add even more dynamics to the game by giving away free fighters to the community in order to compensate for their initial inability to purchase/gain the seasonal character. These characters usually come in five, but can be less. However, it will not be less than two characters.

Battle Season 1

Motaro
Goenitz
Gill
Dural
Nightmare

Boss Rush Villains

These villains strictly appear in the last round of the Boss Rush mode. Their stats are far more powerful at 200% (a normal villain's stat is 100%), and some of them are giant-sized, making them impossible to be attacked by throws, Super Moves, Critical Strikes, and even attempts to do a Clash.

Azazel
Plutonian
Trigon
Darth Nihilus
Nemesis T-Type
Chernabog
The Fallen

Stages

Mordor
Atlantis
Joker's Playground
Savage Land
Living Forest
Arkham Aslyum
Death Star Hangar Bay
Mishima Dojo
Namek
- Destruction of Namek
Lair of the Four Kings
Ysmault
Lake Cocytus
Genosha
Utapau
Republic City
Dathomir
Jade's Desert
Netherrealm
Sozin's Comet (Stage)
Ancient Temple
Minas Tirith
Battle Island
Jinsei Chamber
Slaughter Swamp
Shao Kahn's Arena
AIM Island
Yavin 4
Denevér Castle
Chamber of Azazel
Azarath
Valley of the Dark Lords
Raccoon City
Unicron
Siege of Attica (PS3/PS4 exclusive)
The Hollow (Xbox 360/One exclusive)
Scarif (Batte Season 1)
Ruined Metropolis (Battle Season 2)
Hell (Battle Season 3)
Apokolips (Tag Team Tournament Year 1)
King's Row (Tag Team Tournament Year 2)
Chaos (Stage)

Trivia

This game does not possess all sorts of paid DLCs alike. Instead, the DLCs are all free and added in a monthly basis per Battle Seasons that keep the player base satisfied.
The game's tagline is borrowed from DC Comics' own tagline from the event of Forever Evil during its announcement.