The Crowdfunded interactive supervillain adventure game, Henchman Story is set to launch on PC, PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch on October 14th.
Henchman Story comes from the mind of Outer Worlds writer, Marc Soskin. Players are put into the shoes of Stan, a down-on-his-luck henchman who works for a former mid-level retail executive turned bumbling supervillain known as Lord Bedlam.
“When you see this wild superhero setting through the eyes of some ordinary schmuck who gets his ass kicked for a living, it takes on a whole different vibe with a whole different meaning. We really committed to that,” Soskin said in a statement.
“Stan doesn’t have any powers or a tragic backstory, he’s just some dude trying to get by in a world where people fly and bench press cars.”
Stan is known to keep his head down, but he’ll soon realize that a punching bag in a superhero world may lead to the fate of his student loans. The game is described as both a love letter and a playful/comedic twist on the superhero genre. Henchman Story features meaningful choices that directly influence the story which leads to the game’s 11 different endings.
“The initial concept behind Henchman Story was a marriage of my passion for complex, branching video game narratives, and my predisposition for weird, irreverent humour,” Soskin said.
“To me, both comedy and games excel at showing us things from a different perspective, and that’s the goal here.”
The game has a cast of colourful villains, heroes and fellow henchmen, plus even a little romance among them. Even though the game is a visual novel adventure, the game will be fully voiced, featuring talent from properties like A Hat in Time, Marvel Avengers Academy and even My Hero Academia.
Henchman Story was initially announced for PC, Mac and Linux through a Kickstarter campaign that launched in late September of last year. The goal of the campaign was $15,000 USD which it passed, plus its first stretch goal with a final total of $18,601 USD from 380 backers.
“It’s been amazing to see how that struck a chord with so many people, especially during our Kickstarter campaign. It was a little nerve-wracking launching something like that in the middle of the pandemic, but the support we’ve received from our backers really helped us push through to create something we’re proud of,”
Henchman Story is being published by Top Hat Studios and developed by Silken Sail Entertainment, which Soskin founded. It’s launching less than a year after being funded on October 14th for PC, PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch platforms.
