How Suicide Squad: KTJL's Metropolis Differs from Arkham…

The Batman: Arkham series is renowned for its groundbreaking Freeflow Combat system, its loving adaptation of its comic book source material, its innovative boss fights, and its compelling characters, main story, and side missions. And that's just scratching the surface. With the Batman: Arkham series, Rocksteady proved that it knew how to make a superhero world come to life, and the developer has attempted to do it once more with Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.

Technically set in the Arkhamverse, much of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League's world, characters, and story act as a continuation of the Batman: Arkham series, building on the foundations laid by those past games. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League isn't afraid to walk its own path, however, and the game's new Metropolis setting is the perfect example of that, with it feeling very different from Gotham City.

Why Suicide Squad's Metropolis Feels Different from Arkham Knight's Gotham City

Suicide Squad's Co-Op Gameplay Doesn't Encourage Exploration in the Same Way as Arkham Knight

From a gameplay standpoint, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and Batman: Arkham Knight are very different games. Batman: Arkham Knight is a strictly single-player experience that focuses on hand-to-hand combat and stealth, and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is a four-player, live-service co-op looter-shooter. As such, Batman: Arkham Knight and Suicide Squad approach their open worlds in very different ways. As a solo experience, Batman: Arkham Knight encourages players to take the game at their own pace, balancing their time between side content and main story missions as they see fit. In turn, this encourages players to explore the open world of Gotham City at their leisure, making Arkham Knight's setting feel like this gigantic place that's hiding Easter eggs around every corner.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, on the other hand, encourages more of a streamlined experience for players. Due to its co-op structure, players are funneled into a stream of missions, with players being discouraged from exploring Metropolis for any lengthy duration as the rest of the squad will want to move on to the next mission as soon as possible. This can lead to Metropolis feeling a lot smaller than Gotham, despite apparently being twice its size.

Suicide Squad's Metropolis Doesn't Stand Out Too Much

Another major difference between Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and Batman: Arkham Knight's open worlds is their general aesthetic and how that impacts the maps' memorability. In Batman: Arkham Knight, Gotham City was split into three primary islands, each of which had its own distinctive landmarks and architecture.

Though Suicide Squad's Metropolis is technically split into several districts, the map kind of blurs together due to a lack of distinguishing architecture. While LexCorp, the Daily Planet, and Centennial Park all stand out thanks to their appropriate Art Deco design, much of Metropolis doesn't share that same flair, instead looking just like a mass of generic buildings all bunched together.

This Might Only Be The Beginning For Suicide Squad's Metropolis

But while Batman: Arkham Knight's Gotham City will likely go down as the more memorable of the two right now, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League's Metropolis could win out in the long run thanks to the game's live-service approach. Though fans have only seen brief teases so far, Suicide Squad's post-launch content will add new Elseworlds versions of Metropolis over time, with Suicide Squad's first season adding a Jokerized Metropolis. If Rocksteady can continue to deliver these unique Metropolis iterations, then the sheer variety on offer could help the map stand the test of time.

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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.