Players choose their character's faction (Hero or Villain), gender (male or female), body type (short, medium, tall, spry, athletic, large), personality (comical, flirty, powerful, primal, serious), movement mode (flight, acrobatics, speed or skimming), weapon, and power (fire, ice, gadgets, mental, nature, sorcery, earth, light, electricity, rage, quantum, celestial, munitions, atomic, and water).

When the player's character is named, they are thrown into the world of DC Universe Online with the first experience having to fight their way out of a Brainiac spaceship.

Eventually the player's character is made an official member of the Justice League (heroes) or The Society (villains), where they continue on their missions to increase their level and skill in various content.

Aside from bug fixes, several Game Updates involve Seasonal Events which provide special feats, styles, base items, overworld missions and instances exclusive to the time frame it runs for, usually a month.

[3][4] The opening cinematic takes place in a gritty, war-torn future depicting a final battle between the world's greatest heroes and villains.

Lex Luthor, wearing a heavy mech armor, commands an army of super-villains that includes Joker, Harley Quinn, Circe, Deathstroke, Black Adam, Giganta, Metallo and Poison Ivy.

The battle culminates with the death of Wonder Woman at Luthor's hands, at which point an unshaven, weary Superman hears her dying screams from orbit and flies to Earth to confront him.

As Superman cradles Wonder Woman's dead body, he collapses to the ground and it is revealed that Luthor hid Kryptonite pellets in her mouth as a trap.

Luthor impales Superman with a kryptonite-tipped spear, and stands back to proclaim his victory only to see Brainiac's war fleet fill the skies.

Future Luthor explains that the deadly final war between the heroes and villains was triggered by the subtle manipulations of Brainiac (who had been slowly downloading their powers over time).

With the planet's most powerful beings dead, Brainiac intended to use the pirated data to create an army of metahumans under his control, facilitating his conquest of Earth.

Luthor explains that he was able to survive in secret and eventually steal the stolen data and energy from Brainiac's mothership in the form of "exobytes" (nanobot-sized devices that can bond to a living host and give them their own superpowers).

The heroes are outraged, but Luthor explains that because he has done this, soon thousands of new metahumans will be created from ordinary humans (becoming the player-characters of the game).

He implores the Justice League to find and train these new metahumans, because Brainiac is coming and the Earth must be ready to succeed where it was once doomed to fail.

The two arrive at the portal which is being stabilized by Batman (whose face is disfigured and arm is replaced by a robotic prosthetic due to injuries from the battle of villains and heroes).

Batman tells Fracture to take the canister that contains millions of exobytes and go through the portal, while attacking the Eradicators in order to buy him more time.

Other comic centered storylines feature "Sons of Trigon", "Blackest Night", "Amazon Fury", "Halls of Power", "Bombshells Paradox", "Bottle City of Kandor", "Harley Quinn", "Earth 3", "Teen Titans: The Judas Contract", "Justice League Dark", "Dark Nights: Metal" and Birds of Prey in Episodes.

[8] Sony Online Entertainment's goal was to make a different kind of MMO game, with The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction cited as one of the main inspirations for gameplay.

Comic artists Alé Garza, Carlos D'Anda, JJ Kirby, Oliver Nome, Eddie Nuñez, Livio Ramondelli, and Michael Lopez also contributed to the leveling content headlines and cutscenes.

On May 23, 2019, a Nintendo Switch version of the game was announced, set for Summer 2019, and has since released two separate regional USNS and EUNS servers on August 6, 2019.

This episode focused on the Joker as he gained access to hero and villain safe houses to stir up additional controversy between the player factions.

The episode revolved around DC hero Doctor Fate and would give players a chance to fight through new mystical story content.

The episode revolved around the New Gods of the Fourth World as they sought new ways to take control and engage in strategic battles on a cosmic level.

The episode revolved around players defending OA as it faced a new threat from the Black Lantern Corps, and a new storyline with DC hero Raven.

The episode's storyline revolved around players journeying to Atlantis to save the city and assist Aquaman in securing his power and seat on the throne.

The episode's storyline revolved around players working with John Constantine and the other members of the Justice League Dark to find artifacts that will be useful in fighting back new demonic threats.

The House of Legends contains several alternate reality versions of heroes and villains that characters have aided or defeated before are all working together against the inevitable arrival of a universal being known as Perpetua.

In addition to episodes, Daybreak also releases seasonal-themed content throughout the year, which rewards players with new feats, seasonal styles, base items and trinkets.

Originally released in 2011 and titled Valentine's Day, the event featured a daily mission for heroes becoming cherubs and a separate one for villains becoming imps which lead to a fight with Aphrodite and rewarded styles, feats and collection items.

The content features an open world mission based in the waters around Metropolis, and a 4-player Alert in which players must take on Ocean Master or Aquaman directly depending on your faction.