Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Is Burning The…

Summary

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has received mixed reviews, but some fans have changed their tune after playing it and recognizing its merits.
The game's live-service elements are in a better position than similar titles, with fewer technical issues and a focus on producing new content.
However, the developer's plan to release four seasons' worth of new content is a daunting task, and the success of these updates may be uncertain given the mixed reviews and player count.

2024 has already been a pretty strange year for the video game industry. Among discussions of Xbox potentially going multi-platform and near-constant Nintendo Switch 2 rumors, the games industry has seen a number of high-profile releases over the last month and a half, some of which have been surprise hits, and some of which have been surprising disappointments. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is a true oddity, landing on either side of the spectrum depending on who's asked.

For the last year or so, many Rocksteady fans have held a strong belief that Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is a waste of the studio's talent, trading in a concise, compelling 20-hour DC story for a live-service looter-shooter that plans to live forever. And while many fans still hold this belief, some have changed their tune after finally getting their hands on Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, being able to see its merits even despite the game's flaws. But as is the case with every live-service game, the real test for Suicide Squad begins in a few weeks with the release of the game's first season of free content, and Rocksteady might already be burning the candle at both ends in that regard.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Might Be Biting Off More Than It Can Chew

Suicide Squad's Live-Service Plans Are Promising, But Demanding

Right now, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League's live-service elements and the game as a whole are actually in a much better position than some similar titles, at least when it comes to the technical side of things. While Suicide Squad players have experienced a number of minor bugs and technical hiccups, the game is generally well-polished, likely thanks to the extra year of development it was granted. It's too often the case that a live-service title spends its first few months simply ironing out the issues that should have never made it into the final game, to begin with, but thankfully, it seems as though Rocksteady can skip over this process altogether, allowing it to focus solely on producing new content.

But that's no easy feat as video game development is always a complex process. Whether it's a video game designed for a quick advertisement tie-in, or a fully-blown AAA first-party release, every type of video game development is difficult, and there's always a large sense of pressure to get it all perfect. According to both its pre-release marketing and its in-game post-credits scene, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is currently planning on producing at least four seasons' worth of new content, and that's going to require a whole lot of work behind the scenes.

Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League's Live-Service is a Double-Edged Sword

Currently, Rocksteady is promising a new playable character, a new playable environment, new missions, new boss fights, new weapons, and new themed gear sets every season. Those who have already played Suicide Squad's base game will understand just how much of a hefty promise that all is, with Rocksteady essentially saying that it's going to add or remake about a quarter of Suicide Squad's base content every few months. With Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League taking nearly a decade to make, this seems like an impossible task.

Though Rocksteady already has strong foundations to work from, creating even just a new playable character is no small feat. Rocksteady will need to make a whole new set of character-specific animations, create unique traversal mechanics, create new skill trees, record new lines of dialogue, and try to integrate the character naturally into the game's narrative via new cutscenes, which take a whole lot of time to create in their own right.

According to Rocksteady's current plan, the developer has a frankly alarming amount of work ahead of it, and while Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League could greatly benefit from all of this free content, the likelihood of this coming to fruition seems a bit uncertain right now. Suicide Squad received some very mixed reviews, and its current active player count isn't looking too great either. While receiving new content could save Suicide Squad, the amount of work that's required to do so might not be worth it in the long run.

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Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League

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Released: February 2, 2024

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Play as the Suicide Squad to take down the World’s Greatest DC Super Heroes, The Justice League. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, is a genre-defying, action-adventure third-person shooter from Rocksteady Studios, creators of the critically acclaimed Batman: Arkham series.

Featuring an original narrative set within an expansive open-world city of Metropolis, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League puts the four DC Super-Villains on a collision course with an invading alien force and DC Super Heroes who are now laser-focused on destroying the city they once vowed to protect. All the while, the Suicide Squad must be mindful of the lethal explosives implanted in their heads that could go off at the first sign of defiance.

Each squad member has their own unique moveset with enhanced traversal abilities to freely explore the dynamic open-world of Metropolis, along with a variety of weapons to customize, and skills to master.