Planned Release Date: September 2026

About This Game

A dating sim and beat em up video game about a team of heroes at a superhero-for-hire agency

When a sinister crime wave grips the city, linked to the league of A-list heroes Iowa Boy, Mega Ma’am, and Night Moves, you and your team of misfits uncover shocking truths about yourselves and your adversaries while juggling burgeoning romance. In standard dating-sim fashion, the choices you make will either impress, or push away, your BAE—so choose wisely to earn, and collect, those good endings!

How do you play?

Bad Heroes is a hybrid game with two main elements of gameplay!

Players will start with a visual novel-style dating sim, with choice-based conversations and branching paths and a love meter. These visual novel segments will consist of office drama and dates with the heroes, and an overarching story that will unfold as the game continues.

Choose among these dateable characters! 

• Your boss, Whacktivist, weapons expert and punster

• Mermangler, hot mess creature of the deep with no brains and all brawn

• Blurricane, type-A speedster whose big ambitions get the best of her

• Zombi, the mysterious monster coming to terms with their sudden influx of agency

•  Draculad, suave heir to a vampire fortune

• Tweetie Tights, the ninja gymnast working on his solo hero debut

The visual novel segments interplay with the beat em up when you send the heroes on missions to solve the crime spree. Through these beat-em-up segments, you'll earn romance meter points with the heroes AND start to uncover the mystery of how and why the crimes are happening--a mystery that includes the presence of the major league superhero team.

What else do I want to know?

Bad Heroes was made for people who believe that superheroes deserve love, too! It has EVERYTHING* like...

(*some things)

Dating sim tomfoolery

Pick a hero for a playthrough and romance them to your heart's content... then start right over and choose another hero and date THEM. Call it polyamory or just a good old-fashioned fun time... but none of these heroes will bat an eye at your wandering eye! Each hero comes with their own multiple date options that will win you love points and result in either the good or bad ending. And as with all good dating sims, you're encouraged to collect the endings for each and every hero!

Funny writing and meta references

With writing from novelist Nicky Drayden, games and humor essayist Megan Quinn, and story design by sci-fi/fantasy/horror fictionalist Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam, Bad Heroes is a ROMP, I tell you. We love superheroes, and we love making fun of superheroes, and we love writing narratives that combine humor and heart.

Gorgeous art

All of our art is hand-drawn, 2d-style with vibrant colors, courtesy of William Bastian and Dan Lance.

Ear-worm-y original music

Jazz sax player Jake Dester's fully original soundtrack, inspired by the best retro beat-em-ups, will get stuck in your head for days.

Beat-Em-Up levels with multiplayer mode

We know that beat-em-ups are best with friends, so enjoy bringing in a second hero for the fighting levels in couch co-op mode!

LGBTQ+ friendly

Our team is diverse in many ways and run by members and allies of the LGBTQ+ community. Because the visual novel narration is in 2nd-person, we defaulted to they/them pronouns for the rare times we needed them, and each hero has his/her/their own gender identity, while each character is into all genders equally! Players also have a choice between a more feminine or masculine presenting player character.

Mature Content Description

The developers describe the content like this:

This game contains non-explicit references to sexual activity, adult humor, and strong language.