DC Announces New Digital Collectible Card Game

DC Comics is getting into the deck-building digital card game arena. The comics publisher is teaming up with Cryptozoic Entertainment and Yuke's to release a brand new digital card game called DC Dual Force. Players will build a 40-card deck centered around two Leaders, which consist of iconic DC characters like Batman, Superman, Aquaman, or Harley Quinn. Each Leader is coded by one of five factions, and players then build their decks using Action and Minion cards made up of cards with the same faction designation as their leaders. The factions include Tactics (blue), Might (red), Energy (green), Anarchy (orange), and Tyranny (purple). 

Play in DC Dual Force starts with a player's Leaders already in play on a 3x2 grid. Players can use Minions to protect their Leaders or Actions to provide buffs or other effects to the Leaders. Each Leader has a set defense and can activate abilities periodically using "charges" in the game. 

One major part of DC Dual Force will be the weekly PvE offerings based around different DC storylines. Completing the weekly chapters rewards players with three cards themed around that storyline or character. Players can catch up with missing storylines using the game's subscription model, and players can also buy packs as well. Subscription and pack prices were not available at the time of the announcement. DC and Cryptozoic will also release regular expansions for the game once every four months. Notably, DC and Cryptozoic are already looking at movie and other media tie-ins as well. "We've also talked with DC about other media as well," Cryptozoic COO Cory Jones said in an interview with GameSpot. "For example: Black Adam, we could do a month-long series of PvE comics that are all around Black Adam or something like that. We could have a celebrity pick the comics in a given week. There's a ton of ideas."

DC Comics and Cryptozoic are longtime partners, as Cryptozoic has released an official DC Deckbuilding Game for more than a decade. DC Dual Force is different from that game, and Cryptozoic's goal with the new game is "making a CCG that any DC fan can jump into and learn right away, while also having a game where any longtime CCG fan can play and feel real depth and strategy immediately."

You can find a full preview for DC Dual Force at GameSpot. The game will be released sometime in 2022.