Heroes are recruited by collecting Hero Tokens of the character. Once you have enough, you can unlock and add them permanently to your team. Hero characters have their own survivor slots and thus you don’t have to worry about clearing space for them.

Heroes' starting level are always unlocked at the same level as as your highest level survivor. You can, however, upgrade them using XP (Experience Points) and upgrade their traits with Hero Tokens.

Heroes are also slightly stronger and have more health points than normal survivors.

Each Hero has their own individual Leader Trait that gives special benefits to the whole team when you going to missions. Specific Heroes have always the same traits.