Henchman Story is a superhero story that focuses on a goon’s life

Henchman Story starts off with a full-throttle goofy tone, and at first I thought I was in for a standard superhero story — just from a slightly different point of view. Stan is a goon playing a supervillain. I’m bored but content, and the benefits are too good to quit despite the occasional beating from a hero. Then a venture capitalist comes on board, and it gets even better. Interesting. While Henchman: The Story is an interactive tale about superheroes, it’s also a story about living in a world where superheroes haven’t stopped capitalism from running amok. It’s a simple ride made more interesting by the cast of characters and the compelling core conflict.

Henchman: The StoryThis is a visual novel so you have to make choices from dialogue trees. While these choices start small — am I nice to my obnoxious supervisor, or do I snidely dunk on the dude? — they ramp up as the story goes on. I must make tough choices about whether or not to abandon a friend, overthrow my boss, and/or pursue my self-interests relentlessly.

Stan lives in a base of supervillains, which provides him with shelter and food. He’s just a cog in a corporate system, and the stresses of day-to-day worker life are amplified a thousandfold — he works for a supervillain, after all. Stan is a hired henchman for Lord Bedlam. But a new executive quickly complicates matters. Madame Scorpion is an assassin with a suite of mysterious powers, and she’s oddly interested in Stan. This fixation creates problems for him in his rest of life which I must either accept or try desperately to correct.

Image: Silken Sail Entertainment

Player choices become less about whether Stan is a good or bad person — in fact, Henchman: The Story doesn’t seem interested in “bad” people. Bedlam’s a supervillain who loves chaos and despair, but the narrative doesn’t linger long on him. Instead, it’s much more interested in questions of self-interest and survival. It’s easy to answer a moral question of whether I should be a good or bad person in a vacuum. What about when the whole system they live in rewards them for their bad behavior? We’ve all seen the movies with Iron Man or read about the villainy of Doctor Doom — but what about the people who work for them, who are just there to get a paycheck?

As Henchman: The Story works its way toward its climax, developer Silken Sail Entertainment both gives you lots of rewards for being bad — and lots of chances to back away and turn to the side of good. Survival is one of many powerful weapons the narrative has against good-hearted players. What about another job? You can find out more here This economy?

It’s an interesting take on a well-worn genre, and while parts of it are hammy or predictable, the core choices remain compelling. Henchman: The StoryIt is now available for purchase on Steam or Nintendo Switch. Epic Games Store is expected to release the game in February 2017.