Injustice 2‘s new gear system has been a point of concern for some fans ever since its announcement. The upcoming title will give players the ability to personalize every character with unique and powerful gear, which is earned after every match. Understandably, fans are worried about how this will affect the game’s balance. Speaking to Eurogamer at EGX 2016, the studio’s Brian Goodman said that the team anticipated hesitation from fans but is “developing intelligently to deliver something which will hopefully appeal to all of our fans.”
There’s been a lot of discussion on how best to communicate this because we are, obviously, throwing a bit of a monkey wrench in the works as far as some fighting game purists might find. We’re doing things to make sure people who want a pure fighting game can get that. Goodman admitted that some gear can make matches “essentially unbalanced” but Injustice 2 comes with modes that offer an even playing field.
We’re creating modes where it’s an even playing field and you can gear up for aesthetic reasons but your character stats are on an even plane. We also have modes where gear actually impacts your strength, which is a whole new level of strategy.
Online we’re going to look at matchmaking so players are matched like-for-like, but it will be fundamentally unbalanced at that point.
For the hyper competitive tournaments, we want those to still be places people can sh...