DEVELOPER: Rocksteady Studios
PUBLISHER: WB Games
PREVIEWED ON: PlayStation 5 from a beta code invite.
Rocksteady Studios humbly debuted their first game, Urban Chaos: Riot Response, in 2006 and then quickly skyrocketed to the top of many players favorite developer of all time lists after 2009’s Batman: Arkham Asylum. Its 2 direct sequels, Batman: Arkham City and Arkham Knight, proved that Asylum was no mere one off and firmly cemented that whatever Rocksteady was cooking up was worth getting excited for.
In 2024, however, Rocksteady is in a different place. They haven’t shipped a product since Batman: Arkham VR, and between the time of that game’s release and now the news broke of sexual harassment within the studio. Rocksteady’s co-founders, Sefton Hill and Jamie Walker, also departed mere months before the upcoming Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League got a big push during a Sony State of Play broadcast in early 2023. The near unanimously negative reception of said preview caused Rocksteady to delay Kill the Justice League from its initial May 2023 release date to February 2nd of this year.
Towards the end of last year, players could sign up for beta access of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League with the caveat being that all impressions were embargoed. This was lifted this week, granting people like myself freedom to talk about Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, a game that, like so many, I’ve been unkind to in the past. After a few hours of playtime, I will say I’m slightly more optimistic about what Rocksteady has built, but like a certain other comic book game that tried to play in the live-service space, namely Marvel’s Avengers, it’s still at odds with what it wants to be.
The beta for Kill the Justice League gave me a lot more hands-on than what I was expecting. A month before Marvel’s Avengers released for example, that game too had a beta but it only gave you access to a few characters and missions which is what I was anticipating to be the case here. What I had access to felt like the opening hours of the game, and it made it such that I put limits my playtime because I didn’t want to end up having to repeat all of it again when the full game launches.
Rocksteady carved out their space in the AAA video game space by producing well-crafted, single-player experiences and that pedigree can be seen in Kill the Justice League. The best parts of the beta for me were exploring the Hall of Justice and learning about this universe’s Justice League and events that occurred between this game and 2015’s Batman: Arkham Knight. Batman’s debut, which is largely taken from the trailer seen at the Game Awards in 2022, is like something straight out of a horror movie. We all know what it’s like to be Batman stalking his prey in the shadows, and being on the other end of that is truly terrifying. Amplifying these feelings were the nostalgic sounds from the Arkham series, something that Rocksteady really doesn’t want you to forget they made to an almost desperate degree.
Kill the Justice League will now mark the final performance of the late, great Kevin Conroy as Batman, and it’s a pity that he won’t be sharing the screen with any other DC Animated Universe alum. Not to take away from any other performers of course, like Zehra Fazal who was just revealed as the voice of Wonder Woman, but it was a bit deflating to finally here Superman speak only for it to be Nolan North and not George Newbern. North is a great Superman, but being as the Arkham series owed so much to things like Batman: The Animated Series, it would’ve been nice for that to be continued once Rocksteady branched out beyond Gotham City.
To avoid spoilers for those who want to go in fresh, the way the story is played out is quite interesting, and I’m curious to get my hands on the final game to find out exactly just where it goes. Of course getting to those beats means engaging with Kill the Justice League‘s mechanics which feel better than they look, but still are bogged down by all the needlessly complicated trappings of the Games as a Service world.
Before you’re allowed to see any story, the beta opened with a brief tutorial of sorts for all 4 members of the squad: Harley Quinn, Deadshot, King Shark and Captain Boomerang. This was a wise choice as it really allowed you to explore each character’s unique form of traversal and loadouts. I largely played with Harley Quinn because I prefer nimbler characters, but with the main game I can see myself gravitating towards King Shark who’s effectively the Hulk from Ultimate Destruction with a mini-gun. My least preferred of the lot was undoubtably Captain Boomerang as I didn’t particularly care for this teleporting with his speed force boomerang, and frankly speaking he was really obnoxious.
I still don’t feel that I’m quite sold on building a game around super-villains where all of them are firing guns, but what Rocksteady has built here is better than what I expected. You cannot hide behind cover in Suicide Squad to catch your breath as the game expects you to stay in near constant motion. Something I did not have on my bingo card, for example, was a shield replenishing mechanic like in the most recent DOOM games where you have to wear down an enemy and then perform a melee strike to recharge your defenses.
For the most part moving around was fun, although I feel that after the popularity of Insomniac’s recent Spider-Man outings, it’s going to be tough to come to grips with Harley Quinn. Harley has a drone that follows her and a grapnel gun in which to swing from. You can only do 2 swings before you have to ground yourself momentarily to fill up a cooldown meter and I never quite got the hang of it in the short amount of time I had with the game. Whether it becomes more natural in the full title with more time remains to be seen.
As I started to actually alter my perception of Kill the Justice League after a few skirmishes, the less appetizing nature of software such as this was there to deflate my interest at every turn. Movement and shooting is fun, but it already became tiresome to complete objectives like holding an area for so many seconds like in Marvel’s Avengers. When Riddler popped up and asked me to traverse through rings is where put my controller down. Everyone has to stop collectively dunking on Superman: The New Superman Adventures for the Nintendo 64 when both this and Gotham Knights ask players to jump through literal hoops.
There are some who enjoy the RPG-ification of modern games as nearly all of them have you swapping out loot, moving around skill trees, and collecting junk to craft more junk. Suicide Squad is no exception. Personally I’m burnt out on such things, and I was already disinterested in measuring the difference between one pistol against another for my Harley. The comparison is low hanging fruit, but it has to be said that this is exactly what Marvel’s Avengers felt like. I want to see how the story goes, and the moment-to-moment combat feels good, but I just don’t give a damn about the constant loot swapping.
With less than a month until the full game is in everyone’s hands, it’s still tough to call exactly how much Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League will catch on. The mixture of shooting and movement is fun, but still weirdly off brand for most of the cast, and from what I experienced of the story I want to learn more. Hovering above all of that though is the looming shadow of the dwindling live-service genre that threatens to kill your fun at every turn. Rocksteady, like Crystal Dynamics did with Marvel’s Avengers, is promising free updates to keep players coming back to Kill the Justice League well past its launch. The cost of upkeeping a game of this type is enormous, and when players like Naughty Dog are throwing in the towel before they even ship anything, it’s quite easy to see the fate of so many befalling Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is available February 2nd for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S/X and PC.
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