It's become a well-worn trope in the games industry that, if a video game has a significant amount of DLC, it will be re-released in a year or so, usually with a subtitle like "Definitive Edition" or "Ultimate Edition" tacked on. So please try to contain your shock and surprise when I tell you that Warner Bros. Interactive has just revealed Injustice 2 Legendary Edition - an all-in-one package that combines the base fighting game with all of its DLC, coming to PC, PS4, and Xbox One on March 27 (North America) / March 30 (Europe).
Here's what you'll get should you decide to pick it up:
- Injustice 2 base game
- Darkseid (originally a pre-order bonus)
- Red Hood, Starfire, Sub-Zero (Fighter Pack 1)
- Black Manta, Raiden, Hellboy (Fighter Pack 2)
- Atom, Enchantress, The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Fighter Pack 3)
- Premiere Skins for Supergirl (Power Girl), Green Lantern (John Stewart), Flash (Reverse-Flash), Cyborg (Grid) and Raiden (Black Lightning)
- Learn Hub (an expanded Tutorial mode)
- New Gear
- Increased level cap (30)
It's not clear right now if the new Gear items, expanded tutorial, or increased level cap are exclusive to the Legendary Edition, though we've reached out to the publisher for more information and will update if we hear back.
Personally, I hope that you check out Injustice 2 Legendary Edition; the base game is fantastic (I said as much in our review), and the DLC characters range from the absurd (The Turtles) to the absurdly awesome (Hellboy). And if you were always interested in Injustice 2 but managed to hold off this long, your patience has basically saved you $40, since the $60 Legendary Edition is almost the same as the $100 Ultimate Edition that was available at launch.
That said, it's also been a wake-up call for me on the dangers of getting overly excited for a game that isn't out yet. I knew the likelihood of a new edition of Injustice 2 coming out down the line, but I pre-ordered and bought the Ultimate Edition anyway. Why? Because of this tweet from game director Ed Boon:
So.....uh.... Lotta people like SPAWN then? pic.twitter.com/DEzOMKwVXiNovember 17, 2016
This was actually a follow-up to an earlier poll, where Boon asked fans to weigh in on who they'd like to see added as a guest character. Image Comics' famous anti-hero Spawn won the poll handily, even beating out runner-up Hellboy (who did make it into the game) by twice as many votes.
I love Spawn. I know, he's super '90s and he's super edgelord-y and so on and so forth. But I really do love the character and have since I was a kid. As I imagined playing as Spawn in a fighting game again (he appeared as the Xbox-exclusive guest fighter in Soul Calibur 2), I got overly excited and took Boon's tweets as a sign that the character was confirmed. Of course Spawn wasn't - and isn't - a part of Injustice 2.
Don't get me wrong; I fully admit that the decision to purchase the Ultimate Edition was mine and that I jumped to conclusions I shouldn't have. It's not Boon's fault I plunked down extra cash for a character he never actually said was coming.
I still love Injustice 2, and I feel I got my money's worth from the Ultimate Edition, but the announcement of a Spawn-less Legendary Edition is, for me, a sobering reminder that we shoulder the responsibility of being informed customers when we make a purchase. Don't be like me. Make sure you know where your hype train is headed when you board it.
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