Ship of Heroes
Heroic Games Corporation · Heroic Games Corporation
An indie superhero MMORPG set aboard a fleeing generation ship — the other City of Heroes successor, with a deep costume creator and archetype-and-powers combat, that finally launched in 2025 after eight years to a day-one Steam peak of roughly 100 players.
Worth playing in 2026?
For a specific kind of playerShip of Heroes in 2026 scores 49/100 on the overall lens — updates arrive at a steady drip, and reviews aggregate to 27/100.
Worth it if
- ✓ City of Heroes refugees who miss archetypes and costume-crafting
- ✓ Solo and duo players who want superhero PvE at their own pace
- ✓ Anti-cash-shop players who want one flat price and nothing else
Skip it if
- ✗ tiny population — a day-one Steam peak near 100 and 'almost no players' since
- ✗ looks and feels dated, with UI, targeting, and animation jank widely flagged
- ✗ mostly Negative Steam reviews; a botched launch at $45 plus a $15/month subscription burned early goodwill
Composed from this page's data — score, update cadence, monetization — not from a reviewer's mood. Same inputs as the tier list.
What it costs to start
One-time purchase- · Buy once; no subscription after that
Prices and bundles change — verify on the official site ↗.
Business model
Combat
World design
Platforms
Housing
Update cadence
Profile facts verified 2026-07-21 · monetization verified 2026-07-21
Time commitment
Low chore pressure = the game doesn't punish missed days. Editorial assessments · verified 2026-07-21.
Review scores
Population activity
Sourced, dated observations — never an estimate. Different sources measure different things and are never combined.
Platform activity
Scope: Players with the game open through the Steam client at the moment of observation, as reported by Steam's own player-count API. partial coverage
Does not include: The game's own launcher, console players, other storefronts (Epic, standalone clients), and any separate regions or server clusters. For most MMOs Steam is one launcher among several, so this is a floor, not a total.
Source & method →Related context (not a player count)
Data as of 2026-07-26.
Live data refreshed 2026-07-26 · refreshes daily
Gameplay profile
Editorial scales · verified 2026-07-21
Pros & cons
- ✓ Deep City-of-Heroes-style costume creator and archetype/powerset build variety
- ✓ Genuinely no-strings monetization — one $29.99 purchase, no cash shop, sub, or pay-to-win
- ✓ A small, devoted CoH-refugee community and a team still shipping patches into 2026
- ✗ Tiny population — a day-one Steam peak near 100 and 'almost no players' since
- ✗ Looks and feels dated, with UI, targeting, and animation jank widely flagged
- ✗ Mostly Negative Steam reviews; a botched launch at $45 plus a $15/month subscription burned early goodwill
Best for
- City of Heroes refugees who miss archetypes and costume-crafting
- Solo and duo players who want superhero PvE at their own pace
- Anti-cash-shop players who want one flat price and nothing else
Notes & links
Built over roughly eight years by Heroic Games Corporation as a spiritual successor to City of Heroes, and launched September 22, 2025. It debuted at $45 plus a $15/month subscription to heavy criticism, then in November 2025 switched to a flat $29.99 buy-to-play model with no subscription and no microtransactions of any kind. PvE-first with story mission arcs, task forces, and large raids; population has stayed very low (day-one Steam peak ~100), though the small team kept patching into 2026. Live Steam metrics will replace the placeholder numbers on the next stats refresh.
Sources
Guilds recruiting
No guilds recruiting for Ship of Heroes yet
Playing with a community? Yours could be the first listing here — an evergreen recruitment page beats weekly forum posts.
List your guildSimilar games
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Not sure Ship of Heroes is your game?
Answer a few questions about how you actually play — get matches ranked by fit, not popularity. About 60 seconds.
Frequently asked questions
▸Is Ship of Heroes free to play?
No — one-time purchase. Buy once; no subscription after that.
▸Is Ship of Heroes worth playing in 2026?
For a specific kind of player. Ship of Heroes in 2026 scores 49/100 on the overall lens — updates arrive at a steady drip, and reviews aggregate to 27/100.
▸How many people play Ship of Heroes? Is it dead?
Ship of Heroes's official servers are online, but no verified total player count is publicly available. MMOlist shows sourced activity observations — such as Steam concurrent players where a source exists — in the Population activity section rather than estimating a total. An absence of public numbers is not evidence that a game is dead.
▸Is Ship of Heroes pay-to-win?
No — its monetization is widely considered clean, with little to no pay-to-win pressure.
▸What platforms is Ship of Heroes on?
Ship of Heroes is available on PC.
Spotted outdated or wrong info? — corrections ship fast.