Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League has been one of the year’s biggest talking points within the gaming industry. It’s been coming to be one of the biggest gaming flops of 2023 thus far, losing Warner Bros over $200 million for the first quarter of the year. Despite being in development for nearly a decade, the long-awaited installment in Rocksteady’s successful Batman: Arkham series could not have been more of a critical and financial disappointment if they tried.
For months to even years, many folks have spectacled just what the hell went wrong behind the development of this game and why it took so long to come out. This was set to be Rocksteady’s next main game after concluding the Arkhamverse in 2015 with Batman: Arkham Knight. After the success of that series, it seemed like they could have done ANYTHING and leave plenty of folks excited for what was to come next for the studio. But yet after all that time and waiting, they come up with Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, a game that basically puts all of the worst trends in recent memory in terms of gaming development and pop culture all into one, basically making it doomed from the very start.
Recently, there was an article that was published by known gaming insider, Jason Schreier, which he interviewed over 20 folks from Rocksteady that were part of the creative team of Kill The Justice League to get a sense as to what happened with the development history for this game. And let me tell you, there is some juicy, JUICY stuff in here! Not only going into great detail about everything wrong when it went to making this game but just how you can’t help but feel like Rocksteady wasted nearly a decade of time and money to a game that was basically dead on arrival.
I’m not going to go word-by-word of what was reported by Mr. Schreier but I will certainly give a cliff notes version of what was stated in that article. I will provide a link at the end of the piece of that article along with other sources that have info on what went behind the scenes for Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League.
After Arkham Knight, Rocksteady’s co-ceos Sefton Hill and Jamie Walker set out to make an original multiplayer puzzle-solving game, codenamed Stones.
However, Warner Bros was eager to get a Suicide Squad game out ASAP after the 2016 movie was a big hit at the box office.
WB Games Montreal already had a Suicide Squad game in development for a few years but it wasn’t coming together. Warner Bros then approached Rocksteady to helm the Suicide Squad game by the end of 2016 and they agreed. This put an end to the development of Project Stones and WB Games Montreal’s involvement with this Suicide Squad project.
Rocksteady began development on the game in 2017 but were entering unfamiliar territory, as neither Hill or Walker had experience making online multiplayer games nor did they do much research on it or even played much online multiplayer games beforehand.
Nevertheless, they decided to make Suicide Squad an online multiplayer game with live-service elements added to it.
When the duo confirmed to the rest of the studio they would be making a live-service multiplayer Suicide Squad game, new hires of Rocksteady were SHOCKED by this, resulting in many of them leaving the project as that was NOT what they signed up for.
Due to Hill and Walker’s inexperience with making online multiplayer games, that led to big chunks of the scripts being scrapped and the studio struggling to convey the ideas that the co-ceos had in mind.
Devs would have to wait for weeks to months for Hill and Walker to review their work and provide feedback, which caused constant slow downs in production.
The constant delays made staff members want to abandon the project, as barely any progress was being made in development.
Rocksteady adopted a “Toxic Positivity” policy, where no criticism of the game was allowed, with management kept going on to it’s staff about how the game will turn out great no matter what by the final stretch, just like it did with the prior Arkham games.
Hill pitched an elaborate vehicle system that allowed for players to equip their vehicles with weapons and navigate the streets, similar to the Batmobile in Arkham Knight.
This BAFFLED the staff as the Suicide Squad members already had their own means of transversal through the skies and wondered why the players would chose to patrol through the streets of Metropolis in a large vehicle over quicker methods of transversal. This idea would later be scrapped.
The visions of the leaders kept shifting throughout development, most notably going from an emphasis on melee combat to focusing heavily on gunplay.
Changes like that left the staff confused as to why a character like Captain Boomerang would carry around a gun as his choice of weaponry instead of just…..you know….a BOOMERANG, like the name of the character states. However, Captain Boomerang with a gun would stay in the finished product.
And here is some behind-the-scenes info that came from another notable source in the gaming industry, Miller Ross. This goes into the spoilers of the main plot for the game. If by some chance, you haven’t been spoiled yet and don’t know what happens in the main plot of Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, then click off this article RIGHT NOW because I’m about to dive deep into the controversial decisions in the story.
It was Sefton Hill, the mind behind Rocksteady’s Arkham trilogy (JUST SO YOU KNOW!), that acted as the lead visionary behind the story and premise of Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League.
The story 100% came from Hill, who took inspiration from Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, with the main campaign acting as Infinity War and the post-launch seasons would act as Endgame.
The plot was designed to make the audience believe that the heroes did in fact die for real and the bad guys actually won, creating a shocking twist and setting the groundwork for the post-launch seasons.
Developers at Rocksteady BEGGED to include hints that the Justice League were not actually dead to avoid inevitable backlash but Hill was persistent, wanting to keep it a complete surprise.
Future seasons is set to see new playable characters that will join the fight with the Suicide Squad to eliminated the remaining Brainiacs, including Mrs. Freeze, Deadshot’s daughter, and Deadstroke.
Each upcoming season will have the player resurrecting a previously fallen member of the Justice League.
Season 2 will resurrect The Flash, Season 3 will resurrect Green Lantern, and Season 4 will resurrect Batman (still voiced by the late great Kevin Conroy, who did record lines before his passing).
This will all come together with Season 5, which will see the Justice League resurrected and coming together to stop the final Brainiac.
And now in regards to the aftermath of all this and what awaits the future of Rocksteady and Warner Bros, going back to what was stated in Jason Schreier’s piece.
Sefton Hill and Jamie Walker left Rocksteady in 2022 to start their own gaming studio, which is now titled Hundred Star Games.
Their departure SHOCKED the staff at Rocksteady, giving little to no hints that they would abandon ship right before the game was scheduled to come out in 2023, which would again get delayed to 2024.
Hill and Walker told the staff that they wanted to make games of their own and free of the mandates and pressure from Warner Bros, giving the confirmation that they will no longer be associated with WB or their franchises.
Despite the financial failure of Kill The Justice League, Warner Bros do NOT plan to layoff staff members at Rocksteady and are committed to releasing the remaining seasons of the game.
Because Rocksteady is more understaffed compared to other gaming studios they collaborate with, WB doesn’t view layoffs for them to be necessary.
Rocksteady staff are now working on a director’s cut for Hogwarts Legacy, the best-selling game of last year, while some members will commit to complete the remaining seasons for Kill The Justice League.
The newest leaders at Rocksteady are currently planning to pitch a new single-player game to Warner Bros, hoping it will bring the studio back to its roots.
It’s also worth noting that both Sefton Hill and Jamie Walker declined to be interviewed for this story.
So……..yeah! That is QUITE a development history! When taking all of that info into account, it’s no wonder why this game was in development for so long and why it turned out so bad?! From WB handing the Suicide Squad torch to a studio that had ZERO experience with making online multiplayer games to visions constantly changing to the developers having to wait FOREVER for feedback on their work to the founders literally bailing at the last minute in order to avoid consequences, is it any wonder why the finished product turned out to be as half-assed and half-baked as it comes? There are plenty of great games out there that were able to overcome troubled development, Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League was certainly NOT one of them!
To make matters worse is just imagine all that time and effort that could have went into something COMPLETELY different! Imagine if Rocksteady spend the last seven to nine years crafting a game or even multiple games that are actually worthwhile and involves them doing what they do best! Just imagine if we got that Arkham-style Superman game that everyone wanted for them! Imagine if they made a Batman Beyond game, that follows the plot threads of the Arkhamverse in a RESPECTFUL way! Imagine if we got a proper Justice League game where we had to take down the Suicide Squad members ourselves instead of the other way around! Heck, there’s some folks out there that would even take a sequel to Urban Chaos: Riot Response, the first video game they ever made and their only video game that doesn’t involve Batman in some way! Instead, we all exist in the elseworld where we just got Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League from Rocksteady! And man, does that all feel like a waste of time!
And that is the worst part of all of this is! Whenever a game has been in development for as long as it has, you have to make sure it has the proper payoff and success that you envisioned! Otherwise, you just get a sense that the entire development cycle felt like a GIANT waste of time! All that time, work, and effort put into a product that was received poorly and failed financially! It’s bad enough when that is just a couple of years but when you have put nearly a full DECADE into something and it turned out so bad, well….that’s just a full decade of your life you will NEVER get back! And I imagine that’s the exact feeling that Rocksteady is feeling right now with Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League.
It’s bad enough that development of Triple A gaming is now longer than ever in this day and age. Instead of a traditional two to three years of development, it now ranges somewhere between four to five years! That’s why you are always seeing teasers for games when they first get announced and then you literally hear NOTHING about that game until at least two or three years later on down the road! Ex.) Insomniac with Marvel’s Wolverine, Monolith with Wonder Woman, and MachineGames with Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. You don’t hear much from them until much later on because they are no where close to being done! That is why it’s apparent that video games turn out as great as they should to not only justify the 70 dollar price tag but also justify the long as hell development cycle of it. When it doesn’t, you get games like Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, a game that was a waster of time to not just the players but also the developers who made it.
Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League should act as a perfect example of what NOT to do when developing Triple A games. The whole idea and premise of a game where you play as the Suicide Squad and literally kill the heroes of the Justice League was questionable at the start and it was only made worse with what Rocksteady put out after over seven years of work! WB should have NEVER given this project to a studio that was known for making single player experiences, Sefton Hill and Jamie Walker should have done more research on developing these online multiplayer live-service games and brought in staff members who had that experience and they CERTAINLY should have known better to rely on tiresome trends that was going to be dated by the time the game was released. Making games is already hard enough as it is but it’s even harder when so much time goes into making a game and it brings very little satisfaction to players and the companies themselves.
While I’m glad that Warner Bros will not layoff staff members from Rocksteady, both sides are going to have to work BIG TIME to win back the trust of gamers everywhere! A pitch of a single-player game and developing a director’s cut of Hogwarts Legacy is a good start but they have a LONG way to go before being trusted to deliver high quality games again. We can all only hope they learn their lesson with Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League and never feel obligated to put this much time and effort into a project which does not suit their reputation whatsoever. If not, then I look forward to them throwing another decade of development away in favor of chasing the trends from the 2020s! Let’s all hope we don’t have this exact same talk when Insomniac releases Thunderbolts: Kill The Avengers in 2035, which will have Peter Parker being shot and killed by Screwball!**
Miller Ross’s Tweet About The Story Direction and Spoiler-Filled Plans For The Upcoming Seasons
Great read. Excellent reporting. Just want to add on to this and toss in a few extra nuggets I'd heard. Sorry if this tweet is flow of thought, it's too early to edit it into something more readable.
At its core, this is another example of why Destiny-likes have so consistently… https://t.co/iBsgEnrCKA
With Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League now out, why not rank it among the other installments in the Batman: Arkham gaming series, since it has been confirmed canon to that same universe whether we all like it or not.
I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that this is probably considering the best superhero gaming franchise out there with the possible exception being Insomniac’s Spider-Man series. This is a series that not just revolutionized the character of Batman to a new generation but superhero triple A games in general. And the fact that these games are still being talked about and played to this very day despite beginning 15 years ago, with the latest installment coming nine years after the previous one, just goes to show you the impact and pure staying power that these games have had.
A big disclaimer here, I’m only doing games that were released on the main consoles and are generally considered the main series installments. I was considering trying to secure a copy of Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate and Batman Arkham VR before doing this list but a.) I couldn’t find the charger for my Nintendo 3DS and b.) I couldn’t find a PlayStation VR that was super cheap. So because of that, those games will be off the list.
This will cover the four main series Batman: Arkham games along with the newest addition, Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League. Let’s get right down to it!
5.) Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League
Do I have the hate boner for this game that the majority of the internet has? Not really. Does that mean this game was worth the near decade long wait from Rocksteady? Again, not really. Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League feels like a game that was basically doomed from the start. Not just because this was a game nearly a decade in the making and following Rocksteady’s previous track record with their successful Batman: Arkham games but it was basically by design made to chase the worst kind of trends in modern gaming imaginable. It certainly does it better than most (at least compared to the likes of say Marvel’s Avengers) but like most, it’s own restrictions holds it back for it’s true potential.
It may get the job done by offering a typical action and shoot-them-up game for the Overwatch and Fortnite crowd, and at least has the decency to make the majority of content free (if not free to use offline) but it really doesn’t bother to be anything much else, which goes against what Rocksteady had stood for years now. The plot feels more like a 12-year old’s “What if?” edge lord fan-fiction than it does as being a true continuation of the Arkhamverse, giving the clear indication that this is only in the Arkham name for the sake of boosting sales rather than because anyone thought this truly belong in the same canon.
Yes, the upcoming seasonal content could fix the majority of the complaints and have this game get a resurgence later on down the road (similar to EA’s Star Wars Battlefront 2) but the fact we might have to wait over a year to get all of that says more about this game chasing trends for the sake of chasing trends and not much else. I don’t know whether this was Rocksteady or Warner Bro’s doing but both are capable of much more than this. Is it at least a playable game? Sure! Is it the weakest of this entire series? Without a shadow of a doubt!
4.) Batman: Arkham Origins
For years, Batman: Arkham Origins had the reputation of being the black sheep of the Arkham games. Nothing but the forgotten step child of the bunch and some even like to pretend doesn’t exist. On the surface, it’s easy to see why. This is the only one of the main four Arkham games to NOT be developed by Rocksteady, it doesn’t have the legendary Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill in their roles as Batman and Joker respectively, and was basically the one that acted the most as a “filler” game that was basically made to buy time between the releases of Arkham City and Arkham Knight. There were also multiple reports of bugs and glitches that plagued the game for most people, which I was NOT one of them. However, when looking at the game itself now time has past and updates of the game have been made, Arkham Origins is actually a really damn good game in it’s own right and is highly underrated.
The gameplay is as fluid and fun as it is in the other Arkham games, the addition of the shock gloves is a neat one, seeing Bruce Wayne in his younger, more reckless stage as Batman is engaging and perhaps the most interesting in the entire series, the voice work from Roger Craig Smith’s Batman and Troy Baker’s Joker is great, and it has hands down has the best boss fights in the entire Arkham franchise, with the Deathstroke one in particular being an all-timer. Not to mention, even Alfred gets his time to shine here, including that great scene where he tries to stop Bruce from going out as Batman, showing he truly sees Bruce as his son and not just as his butler. Sure, it does feel like a pre-heated meal compared to the three Rocksteady Batman games and it did suck to see them pull a switch-a-roo with Black Mask not being the actual villain to make room for the Joker but those flaws are no where near a deal breaker for this game.
While not the best, Arkham Origins easily remains the most underappreciated game in the Arkhamverse. To this day, I don’t understand the scorn that fans have with this game or even why both Rocksteady and WB Games Montreal feels so obligated to pretend this game never happened. I understand being critical of this game when looking at it from a business and commercial standpoint (with it being a “filler” game and all) but looking at it’s own thing and the limited amount of time that WB Games Montreal was given, Arkham Origins is a really solid game with gameplay features and story elements that are among the very best of the Arkham games. I remember playing the hell out of this game when I got in on Christmas Day back in 2013 and enjoying it all the same and still do this very day.
3.) Batman: Arkham Knight
The (original) ending of the Arkhamverse divided Batman’s fans everywhere when it arrived in 2015. While plenty found it to be a worthy send-off for this iteration of Batman, others were frustrated by it due to the new elements that the game itself included. However, as the dust settles and in the wake of lesser superhero games that are somewhat Arkham related such as Gotham Knights and Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, there seems to be more appraisal towards it. While I did feel a bit cold of this game upon my first playthrough of it, Batman: Arkham Knight has only gotten better with age and easily grows on me each time that I play it.
Yes, there’s too much of the Batmobile that gets more tedious the more the game progresses. Yes, the Arkham Knight reveal is very obvious if you know the Batman lore. Yes, the final showdown with Deadshot is underwhelming. And yes, those goddamn Riddler trophies can go to hell! However, there’s plenty of greatness to be found here! We finally have a fully realized Gotham world that’s fun to explore, the gameplay is the best and more polished than ever before, the voice work is superb, the story is the most stake-heavy with resonating themes that feel very Batman appropriate, the graphics is some of the best in any video game, and is able to find a fitting end to a character that isn’t very well known for having definite endings. Yes, the flaws are still presented and prevent it from being as good as it’s main predecessors from Rocksteady but so are the overall strengths for it.
Do I think Arkham Knight is as good as Asylum or City? Not quite but I do feel there are plenty of instances where it comes pretty darn close. So much so that I wouldn’t be surprised if one day, it would surpass at least Asylum for me. Regardless of the quality of the new Suicide Squad game, I do love how it has encourages fans to look back on this series and see the amazing accomplishments that these games have turned out to be. Showcasing how superhero and license video games don’t have to suck. When you have the right amount of right people who want to create something special, it’s then you will have a gaming series as successful as the Batman Arkham series. Had this been the last true game we got in this universe, I would have been more than okay for how satisfying of a game it truly is.
2.) Batman: Arkham Asylum
You would be hard pressed to find a superhero or even licensed game that was able to define the seventh generation of consoles than Batman: Arkham Asylum. After so many Batman games have come and gone with mixed results, this was the first one that just perfectly capture the distinct feeling of being the Caped Crusader himself. Coming off the year after the release of The Dark Knight which helped set the golden standard for superhero movies, DC and Rocksteady was able to follow the success of that greatly with Batman:Arkham Asylum, the game which helped set the golden standard for superhero licensed games.
Batman: Arkham Asylum is ever bit as awesome as you remembered it was back in 2009. While the boss fights are still rather weak and I don’t fully buy Joker’s “let’s create an army of Banes” master plan, nearly everything else is done rather flawlessly that it’s hard to let those minor gripes bring down the entire game. The combat is absolutely fun with plenty of inventive ways to beat your opponents, the gadgets always come in handy, the detective aspects add a ton to the experience and character of Batman, the entire Arkham island itself is cool to explore, the unlockables are so eager to collect, the voice acting is incredibly stellar, and there’s never a second which you don’t feel like you are in control of The Dark Knight himself.
This is a game that has continued to stand the test time, even 14 years later. For a studio that was relatively unknown before Arkham Asylum came out, there was no better way for Rocksteady to put themselves on the map for gamers all around after crafting this absolute achievement of a video game. If you are a Batman fan and somehow still have not checked this game out, I highly recommend it. Even if you are not a Batman fan and want a really fun action packed game, then I recommend it too. Perhaps it might even turn you into a Batman fan yourself just like I imagine it did for gamers everywhere back in 2009. If 2008 showed how good superhero films can get with The Dark Knight, then 2009 showed how good superhero games can get with Batman: Arkham Asylum! Even to this day, the Caped Crusader remains the standard!
1.) Batman: Arkham City
If you want to talk about a quintessential Batman game, look no further than this masterpiece! After the critical success of Arkham Asylum, Rocksteady knew exactly the direction where to go to top themselves and it perfectly shows throughout the game. Not only does Batman: Arkham City act as a perfect sequel to Arkham Asylum but it also acts as a perfect Batman game and just a perfect superhero game in general. It takes everything you loved by Arkham Asylum, tweaks some of the things that didn’t work about it, throws in some new elements, and is able to off a much grander and wide open world where you truly feel like Batman. If that is not the signs of a great follow-up, then I don’t know what can.
The combat is improved in every way and offers more unique and inventive ways to take down criminals, seeing Batman pushed beyond his limits is always fascinating to see, Arkham City is incredibly fun to explore, Catwoman is a great new addition, the missions from both the main and side stories are all interesting, it’s paced extremely well, the story is the best in the series, the music and voice work are outstanding, and the ending with the death of the Joker will always be an all-timer. This is a game that’s so good that even the little things you can nitpick at (such as Hugo Strange being reduced to being a background villain despite teasing to be the main driving force of the game) aren’t worth mentioning because it doesn’t feel like flaws in any way but more of a tiny little blemish you find on a flawless face. Not to say this game is 100% flawless because no game is but it just feels like that whenever you are playing it.
I don’t think Rocksteady could have followed up Arkham Asylum any better than they did here. If anything, one could make the strong argument that Batman: Arkham City basically acts as to date Rocksteady’s Magnum Opus, a marvelous achievement that every cast and crew apart of this game should be extremely proud of, even 13 years later. Batman: Arkham City is not only the best game in the Arkhamverse for me but it’s one of my all-time favorite games period. I’ve played through this game so many times and I wouldn’t be surprised if I have several more playthroughs with it in the future. As much as I love Spider-Man, when it comes to pure superhero gaming entertainment, Batman: Arkham City still remains on top!
*Warning! This article contains MAJOR spoilers for Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League! If you haven’t played the game yet and/or don’t want anything spoiled for you, then you might want to click off the article right now! You have been warned!*
Oh, boy! Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League is perhaps the hottest and most controversial game at the moment! Even before it’s release, there has been plenty of things that have inspired it’s controversy. From the required online services to it’s obsessed looter-shooter mechanics to this not being a Superman or Batman Beyond game, things were not looking too bright for Rocksteady’s first console game since the mid 2010s. And the fact that it was delayed numerous times didn’t seem to help much either! However, there is certainly not been a bigger controversy of this game than that of Batman’s role. Before we dive deep into why people are angry about how Batman was handled in Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League and whether or not it’s justified, let’s go back a bit to see what happened with the Caped Crusader between Arkham Knight and into this game.
As we all know, Batman: Arkham Knight for a while was considered the definite conclusion to the Arkhamverse. After all, the game ended with Bruce’s identity being revealed to the world by Scarecrow, which gave the orphan playboy billionaire the impression that his time as Batman in Gotham has come to an end. By installing an emergency protocol he activated in case his true self ever got exposed, formerly known as the Knightfall protocol, that led Bruce to faking the death of himself and (presumably) Alfred to have the world think he is dead and hopefully keep those he cares about out of harm’s way. Despite everyone else in Gotham believing he is dead, it’s revealed in the very last scene of the game where two muggers attack a family in an alley that Bruce might in fact still be alive but cosplaying as a nightmarish figure resembling Batman, using the fear toxin from Scarecrow to make that happen.
Even though Arkham Knight was designed to be the true endgame for this iteration of Batman, it still had such an open ending that could open the door to pretty much anything if this series would ever be continued. For a while, there were rumors and speculations that suggested this would lead to the likes of a Damian Wayne-lead Batman game which would have Bruce Wayne in his “Batman Beyond” phase. This game was confirmed by voice actor Josh Keaton to be true and he would have been the voice of Damian Wayne himself. However, due to leaks and potentially WB Games Montreal (the studio that was developing the game) having cold feet on having a game focused on Damian Wayne taking on the Bat mantle, that project never came to pass.
It was then that project would later turn into Gotham Knights, putting the focus on the other members of the Bat family with Robin, Nightwing, Red Hood, and Batgirl after Bruce Wayne’s supposed death. Despite being a reasonable thematic follow-up to Arkham Knight, that game was not considered part of the Arkham canon and stood alone as it’s own game. After several years of rumors of a potential Superman game set in the Arkham universe along with the un-canon release of Gotham Knights, the true continuation of the Arkham canon came with Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, which the version of Batman would be the same one as we’ve been following in Arkham Asylum, City, Origins, and Knight.
The game states that after Arkham Knight, Bruce disappeared for several years until Superman found him. After he found Bruce, Superman asked for him to come back as Batman and join the Justice League. An offer which Bruce accepted. So now, Bruce as a new home in Metropolis and a new purpose as Batman in the form of the Justice League. Because of all that, the story of Bruce Wayne as Batman continues….even though everyone in the world knows his true identity.
And…that is literally all the context that the game gives us. There have been a few expansion novelization that suggest that post-Arkham Knight, Bruce was depressed and felt his live was ruined after Scarecrow revealed his identity, with the mindset that joining the Justice League would cure him of his depression and allow him to continue his crime fighting persona. But other than that, just about everything that has gone on with Batman between games happened offscreen with major important context being completely handwaved.
When you view that status quo with the little context the game offers us, that basically renders the ending of Arkham Knight rather meaningless. Why did Bruce go through all that trouble in faking his death to protect his friends if he was just going to come back in another city as Batman? By that point, criminals were no longer afraid of him and the world knowing his identity would put his friends in graver danger than ever before. Did Bruce just assume he trained his companions hard enough where they could handle any danger by themselves without his presence, even though Arkham Knight showed us they clearly can NOT?! And what happened with Alfred? Did he die with Knightfall Protocol or was he presumably killed offscreen by evil Batman like his other companions have been (We’ll go into THAT soon enough!)? The game doesn’t really give us any answers to those questions. While that is understandable from a narrative standpoint because this is suppose to be a Suicide Squad game first, it just makes it all the more clear that this could not have been a worse game to continue the plot threads of the Arkhamverse. Instead of getting a Superman or Justice League game first that might expand on that status quo and even justify it, it’s thrown to the wayside where you basically have to fill in the blanks yourself.
When it comes to Batman’s role in the game, he is basically in his pure evil form the whole way through due to being mind controlled by Brainiac. So much so, that he does what normal Batman would not do….kill people. This is shown in the very first sequence with him when he encounters the Suicide Squad. He blatantly uses his batarang to murder security guards and comes close to beating mind-controlled Barry Allen to death until he is ordered by Brainiac to keep him alive. Although, as usual in mediums where Batman breaks his “no kill” policy, it’s incredibly inconsistent. Like, he has no problem wiping out security guards and even the freaking FLASH but when he has the squad pinned down, he just screws off because otherwise….the game would be over in an hour.
However, as someone who tries to overprepare for EVERYTHING in his life, Batman even offered preparations in case something like himself and the Justice League being mind controlled by Brainiac happened. This is revealed in a recorded message once the Suicide Squad breaks into the Batcave. This was a message intended for his companions: Robin, Nightwing, and Oracle (which I guess answers one of those questions I stated before) as a guide on how to stop the Justice League if the group became compromised. Unfortunately, it’s revealed that Robin got taken out by evil Batman with the fates of the other two, Jason, and Alfred being unknown (which proves how dumb of a decision it was for Bruce to come back as Batman leaving his companions defenseless).
It’s then you fight Batman in his nightmare form he had been fighting in since Arkham Knight. After a rather intense sequence where you have to spread the Bat lab with fear toxin gas, you confront the nightmare fueled caped crusader head on until you’ve shoot at him enough times to beat him. The end results leaves Bats badly wounded and bleeding everywhere. The squad takes him to Lex Luthor’s lab, who uses Batman to develop golden kryptonite weapons to kill Superman. In comes the most talked about scene of the game!
In order to lore Superman out of hiding, the squad takes Batman out in the open to execute him. After Harley gives a speech about the history the two have shared throughout this series of games and Batman calling the speech s*it, Harley shoots Batman blank in the face and kills him. Supposedly putting an end to the Arkham Batman as we know it and possibly the last time we will ever hear Kevin Conroy’s voice as Batman.
To say this has pissed people off would be an understatement! To take a version of the character that is considered to be the definite Batman medium in terms of video games and possibly all forms of entertainment and kill him off in such an unceremonious way is guarantee backlash from day one! However, there may be something here that we are NOT aware off and will have to await for seasonal content to determine the true outcome.
First off, I will say right off the bat! DO NOT USE KEVIN CONROY’S DEATH TO DRAG BATMAN’S TREATMENT OF THIS GAME THROUGH THE MUD! THAT IS DISGRACEFUL AND UNCALLED FOR!
No one at Rocksteady could have predicted his death and I’m fairly certain his voice work was recorded at least a few years before his untimely passing. Let’s also not forget that Kevin Conroy himself DID agree to do the voice work for Batman in this game and (if sources close to him are any indication) was perfectly okay with what was done with Batman in this game. It’s not like this is some A.I.-generated voice or anything, this was in fact all Kevin Conroy. The man NEVER once stated that Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League would be his final time voicing the character. It was just unfortunate this had to be one of the very last times for him to do it!
Secondly, let’s not act like Harley Quinn or anyone else is incompetent or isn’t capable of taking the Bats down. After all, this was the same Harley Quinn that was able to capture Batman in her DLC for Arkham City and would have in fact killed him due to lack of oxygen if it wasn’t for Robin saving his life. And if you continue to treat this game as canon to the Arkhamverse, it does tie back to Arkham City and Arkham Knight of Harley Quinn seeking vengeance against Batman for the death of her pudding. Yes, it seems like little HQ is over her pudding’s passing throughout the game, but it does thematically feel natural to her character.
Thirdly, and I’m pretty sure this has basically been confirmed through leaks, this is NOT the same Batman as the one we’ve been following since the Arkham games. What I mean by that is I’m fairly certain that upcoming DLC will reveal that the evil Batman presented throughout the game is not the real Batman but a clone made from the same DNA by Brainiac. The evil Batman that is presented throughout feels so out of left fired compared to the prior Arkham games that I would be shocked if it was not revealed that the Batman in this game is a fake and the real one is still out there somewhere.
If you don’t believe me, there are plenty of hints throughout the game that give the indication that the Justice League presented in the game are in fact not the real ones. You have the Flash that was able to regrow his finger after it got cut off, there’s Green Lantern whose ring doesn’t act the way it normally does, Superman surviving the kryptonite from Wonder Woman, all of the bodies of the JL after their “death” being teleported back to Brainiac’s ship, and even just the fact Brainiac refers to the Justice League at the final battle as MY Justice League and not THE Justice League. Not to mention, this is literally the same game where you have to go to another world to find another Lex Luthor after the one in this universe was killed off by The Flash. It’s time travel at will!
And if you are wondering about the hints of Batman’s potential resurrection, a recent video by the GOAT Batman Arkham Videos, found a hidden easter egg that teases that exact possible outcome for the future. There’s a hidden message in the forms of calendars scattered throughout Metropolis, each highlight a specific date, which the one from December has the bat symbol labeled on the date of the 14th. These calendars serve as a nod to Calendar Man, a villain from Arkham City, and spells out a message in twelve letters that makes sense once you crack the code. That message states, “He will return!” If that’s not a sign that Rocksteady is not done with their version of Batman yet, then I don’t know what is.
I’m sure there will be PLENTY of folks that will claim that Rocksteady would only resurrect Batman and the other previously fallen Justice League members due to the massive backlash of the game but if the hints, easter eggs, and leaked audio of the upcoming DLC is any indication, it’s clear this was planned from the very beginning. Plus, as we should all know now the old saying of comic book storylines, no one ever stays dead except for Uncle Ben and the Waynes.
The bigger question isn’t so much about if Rocksteady plans to revive Batman and the rest of the Justice League but more of when and how? Will they stick to their guns and release the seasonal content when they originally planned to? Will they release ASAP in response to the negative reception of the game? Were they able to get voice recordings of Kevin Conroy’s Batman for this DLC before his death or would they need to recast in order to do so? I’m sure those questions will be answered as 2024 goes around but I’m fairly certain that this will be the final outcome for the Arkham Batman.
Although this is the main problem with live-services games that rely on seasonal content to determine the final outcome of the game but the only thing we can all do is wait and see. While Batman’s resurrection will not solve all of the problems with his inclusion in this game, I am hopeful Rocksteady is able to find some alternative that can either continue his story in this universe or find a real proper ending for the character.
Even if Batman is getting much proper treatment in the upcoming DLC, I still consider Arkham Knight to be the true definite send-off for this iteration of Batman. Anything afterwards to me is basically a “What If?” scenario and nothing else. If it’s done well, I can be like “Yeah, I guess that would be cool!” If it’s not done well, I can then be like, “Well, at least it ended with the last game for me!” I have my Batman games to look back upon fondly and nothing this game does can take that away from me!
Regardless, I’m grateful we got to hear Kevin Conroy voice Batman at least one more time for a big major title! And as I said in my main review, he sounded just as good there as he did when he first put the cape and cowl on back in the 90s with Batman: The Animated Series!
After a near decade long wait, Rocksteady has FINALLY return to the scene with Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, the studio’s first console game since Batman: Arkham Knight. After the massive success and acclaim of the Batman: Arkham series, I’m pretty sure everyone and their mother had been wondering what this studio would tackle next after such an impressive achievement with that beloved franchise of games. Would they continue that timeline with a Batman Beyond game with a big focus on Damien Wayne? Would they do a modern Superman game running on the same Arkham engine? Would they do a full-on Justice League game? Or would they do something completely original that doesn’t involve DC superheroes? While all of those development cycles had been rumored or speculated for years now, none of those ended up being the case whatsoever. Instead what we have is a brand new Suicide Squad game with the subtitled Kill The Justice League.
Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League takes place in that same Arkhamverse as the Rocksteady Batman games and the one from WB Games Montreal, that puts an emphasis on third-person shooting, exploring an open world, and (at least at the time of writing) requires your service online to be able to experience the game fully. The game was announced in August 2020 was set for a 2022 release date until that got delayed multiple times to improve the overall quality of the game. More DLC in season passes is expected to arrive over the course of the year and possibly even more depending on how the services are later on down the road.
I can’t speak for everyone but I really don’t think a Suicide Squad game was the follow-up of Batman: Arkham Knight from Rocksteady that we all expected or even wanted. Perhaps had there been a few games before this on, such as the previously mention Batman Beyond,Superman and/or Justice League game, it would feel more welcome. But, for a game that has been reported to be in development since at least 2017 and coming from a successful studio who hasn’t released a full game since 2015 (Batman Arkham VR does NOT count!), Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League acting as the first blimp in the radar in what seems like forever doesn’t really inspire much courage.
However, at the end of the day, you can only judge a game based off the final product. And considering I already promised I would do a review for this game when it came out as a means to include my Batman: Arkham marathon, I have no choice to do just that. Is Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League able to make the best out of the worst possible situation or does it really deserve to be dragged through the mud like it has been by the majority of the internet? Let’s start off by talking about perhaps the most conversational aspect of the game, the story!
Story:
First off, I will say I will try my very best to avoid major spoilers. However, considering the fact that the actual premise of the game could be considered a giant spoiler with itself along with the actual subtitle of the game, I can’t make any promises that you won’t at least read between the lines with what I’m about to talk off. And that’s not even mentioning the leaks to the upcoming DLC that basically confirms that events of this game will be retconned or at least the supposed body count will likely not lead to having to carve headstones after all. Either way, if by some chance, you have NOT been spoiled by Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League in ANY way, I would advise skipping this part of the review. There is your warning!
Taking place five years after the events of Arkham Knight, we turn our focus of the series to a group of criminals imprisoned in the Arkham Asylum assembled by A.R.G.U.S. director Amanda Waller. This group is known as Task Force X, A.K.A. the Suicide Squad. The members of the Suicide Squad include Harley Quinn, Deadshoot, Captain Boomerang, and King Shark, who are all forced to fight against their will by Amanda Waller because of little bombs that are implemented inside their head, which Waller can activate at any given moment.
Waller sends the team of Arkham misfits to Metropolis, which is under attack by an all-powerful villain known as Brainiac. It’s discovered that Brainiac has took control over the minds of four of the five members of the Justice League, which includes Superman, Batman, Flash, and Green Lantern, with Wonder Woman being the only member free from his clutches. At first, the team is instructed to find a way to free the male league members from Brainiac’s control and save them all from their evil form. However, after encounters with a brainwashed Green Lantern and Batman along with butting heads with a brainwashed Flash, Waller and the Task Force team soon come to realize that saving them can no longer be an option. The only way to save Metropolis now is by killing the Justice League members all together with Brainiac along with them.
But because most of the Justice League consists of all-powerful superheroes that have special powers that no ordinary living being does, they can’t take beat them with their normal wits and weaponry but need knowledge and resources from a special someone to unlock the secrets to murdering each Justice League member one-by-one. That special someone is no other than Lex Luthor.
However, after something happens to the Arkhamverse Lex Luthor that makes him no longer available, the squad teleported themselves into the elseworlds (basically the DC equivalent of the multiverse) to find a Lex Luthor from another world. The elseworld Lex Luthor confirms to Task Force X that he had worked with the Lex Luthor from their world to prepare for Brainiac’s invasion after he failed to do so in his world. He agrees to go to the world of the Suicide Squad and help them find a way to stop Brainiac and the evil Justice League before Metropolis is completely destroyed.
Commanded by Amanda Waller and assistance from the likes of Lex Luthor and a still-good Wonder Woman, the Suicide Squad must risk their neck and lives to wipe out the members of the corrupted Justice League and Brainiac before even more damage is done in Metropolis and possibly the entire Arkhamverse and elseworlds.
Okay, before I got into how much this story just does not work in the context of being set in the same universe as the prior Batman: Arkham games, I feel like it’s only fair to discuss why this story just doesn’t work on it’s own terms. It starts off decent, with solid introductions to the squad, a fun tour of the Hall of Justice and viewing the status quo of the Arkhamverse, and a tense boss sequence once you come up against Evil Batman for the first time. However, after a somewhat promising start, it falls off the rails completely once it really gets going.
You have ideas and concepts that are barely explored, a pace that seems rushed and all over the place, outcomes of major characters that are handwaved and/or treated as edgy jokes, and an ending that makes it feel like nothing much was accomplished. It’s baffling after making fine use of it at the start that the story seems to lose interest in it’s own concept, trying way too hard to make the Suicide Squad the REAL heroes of the story and not act as the criminal freaks that they are.
The idea of the plot itself could make for a fun spoof of a comic book game storyline with such a ridiculously unapologetic “I don’t give a f*ck! We’re playing by our own rules!”, mirroring the likes of Deadpool, Metal Gear Rising Revengeance, and Sunset Overdrive. However, where as those games at least have a self aware charm to it that lets it’s audience in for such a crazy ride, Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League comes across as more crude and mean spirited than anything else.
That’s not even going in how distractingly similar this is to the plot of Marvel’s Avengers (2020), which this game falls to many of similar trappings with but with different results. Just replace the Avengers with the Justice League, M.O.D.O.K. with Brainiac, and instead of saving the heroic team, you have to kill them, and it’s basically the same plot at it’s core. It’s so familiar that it makes me wonder if this was originally suppose to be a full-on Justice League game but decided it against after seeing the backlash that Marvel’s Avengers got.
When talking about this plot within the context of the Arkhamverse, it’s even worse. This doesn’t so much feel like a continuation of the Arkham canon but more as a 12 year old “What If?” edge lord fanfiction that has only slightly more thought put into it than that Death of Batman fan film. The characters brought back from the prior Arkham games don’t feel even remotely like their previous versions.
Harley seems to have long forgotten about her pudding (Which she doesn’t even say in the game btw!) and feels more in line with the Harley Quinn from the Max animated series than she does of her Arkham counterpart, and that’s not just because she revealed to have actually been in a relationship between Poison Ivy, despite them never EVER being a thing in the previous Arkham games. Riddler and Penguin feel like they were shoehorned in with not much explanation as to why they are no longer in Gotham. And I would say something about Batman’s characterization but I’m saving an entire piece for that.
It’s not that this story couldn’t work within the Arkhamverse but this just seemed like the very wrong game to continue that story with. It’s because having to focus on the Suicide Squad themselves that big questions that people have had since Arkham Knight such as why Bruce came back as Batman and when did the Justice League assemble are given the most “hand-wavey” answers imaginable that gloss over big important context. It only seems like Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League was included in the Arkham canon just for the sake of boosting sales and NOT for the sake of expanding the world even further. When even Gotham Knights feels more like a thematically worthy follow-up to Arkham Knight, you have a big problem on your hand.
The only time the story itself shines is within the characterization of it’s main cast and a handful of interactions. The entire sequence in the first hour where you tour the Hall of Justice and see the way the Justice League team in this universe is characterized within recorded hologram messages is very satisfying to see. It really felt like the writers did their homework when it came to realizing the true appeal of these characters. So much so, it makes you wonder why they went through the trouble of making them feel likable when we are going to have to kill them anyway. The main standouts here involve Superman and Wonder Woman, who basically acts as the protagonist of the story and a guide for Task Force X themselves. It only makes you wish you were playing a Superman or Justice League game instead of this one.
The Suicide Squad members do get some fun moments to themselves as well. Even within the rather crude and tryhard like tone, there’s a few times where most of the jokes and banter pays off. The back-and-forth between the squad and the Flash is fun, it’s cute to see Harley being a Wonder Woman fangirl all of a sudden (even if it makes zero sense in the context of the Arkhamverse), Boomerang gets the most hilarious lines in the game and there’s one sequence which Amanda Waller goes batshit crazy that’s actually satisfying to watch. It sucks that most of the characters are as enjoyable as they are and makes you wish more effort was put into the actual plot itself.
The story itself is possibly the worst thing about this game. It doesn’t work as it’s own thing and it most CERTAINLY doesn’t work as a continuation of the Arkhamverse. Even if there were ideas that might have been interesting on paper, the execution could not be anything less than before. It’s clear that the story took a backseat for everything else about this game and it clearly shows.
However, considering this is intended to be a live service game first, the gameplay is what matters the most. Does that fare any better? Kind of, but not really.
Gameplay:
Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League is an action-adventure game that is set in the open world of Metropolis. It features four playable characters which are no other than the Suicide Squad members themselves. There’s Harley Quinn, Deadshot, Captain Boomerang, and King Shark.
Despite all four characters controlling similarly, each of them has their own kind of weapons, melee combat style, and traversal method for them to chose from. When it comes to weaponry, it involves each class being shared by two of the four characters that are available at the time of release. When it comes to unique move sets and ways to travel, each of the them has a feature that stands out. You have Harley Quinn that has a baseball bat and travel using Batman’s grapple gun, you have Deadshot that has his own guns and can jetpack his way throughout Metropolis, you have Captain Boomerang that can you his boomerang to teleport to where ever it goes and his own gun, and you have King Shark that can jump high and far and his own lovely machine gun. Despite having similar controls, they all are designed to feel differently from one another, making certain missions feel like you should play as one specific character over the other three.
There is also a progression skill tree that is included here. It allows for player to level up to stronger and different skill sets at any point of the game. The more enemies you kill and more missions you complete throughout the game, the higher your ranking will go for ever character. However, each character can only level up individually and is not something you can do with the whole group at one time. The only exception is if you playing through multiplayer mode.
And speaking of multiplayer, while the entire game can be played solo, it does include a four-player co-op multiplayer mode, that can be play with someone you are playing with in person or through online. When playing solo, players can switch between any characters while the other characters are controlled by the game’s AI. However, you aren’t allowed to switch between different characters during a certain mission and can only do that again once you have completed that mission or die before switching up again.
When it comes to the missions themselves, there is literally about three different types that are introduced here. All of them are ones you can beat with the most mindless button mashing and straight forward objectives imaginable for a loot box filled, third-person shooter. You have missions where it involves taking control of enemy bases, there are missions where you have to protect enemies from your allies, and missions where you have to escort someone in a big truck. And that’s basically it when it terms to variety with the missions.
None of them play differently than the other, there’s no interesting mix thrown in between each one, they don’t seem to get much harder or easier as it goes on, and it involves accomplishing the exact same objective over and over and over again. Sure, playing the missions as each individual character can make the experience slightly more different but once you beat each one of these missions with all four members of The Suicide Squad, you have basically seen everything that the missions in these games provide.
I wish I could say more but that’s just about how the mission structure is laid out throughout the entirety of the game. It’s the same rinse and repeat formula that makes each objective clear as daylight without much new added to it except you are playing as DC bad guys now instead of super heroes. It’s certainly functional and works the way it was programmed but there’s very little variety here and that makes it feel like the same loot box, third-person shooter but with a different coat of paint.
The only other exception for the variety of missions are the sections with The Riddler. Yes, The Riddler has returned in the Arkhamverse and is now in Metropolis instead of Gotham for some odd reason that is never explained. As with the prior Batman: Arkham games, there are side quests and missions where you can go out of your way to collect Riddler trophies that are scattered throughout the open world, solve puzzles that have been laid out in the map, and designed obstacle courses that you are given a star rating on depending on how fast you are able to complete each course.
Even taking out the fact that The Riddler’s return here makes ZERO sense in terms of story, I really don’t see the point of these side missions existing. There’s nothing creative or inventive about any of the courses and you never feel the strong desire to take time out of the main story to collect these trophies and solve the puzzles. At least in the prior Arkham games, doing all of The Riddler’s work felt rewarding by the end of it and made beating him all the more satisfying. Unless you are an achievement/trophy whore, you will not feel any obligation to want to play these side missions. I never even bother looking up to see what happens when you get everything or if there is a cutscene with him because I was so uninterest in his presence here.
Just like the story itself, it only feels like The Riddler’s missions are here because they were a staple of the previous Batman: Arkham games and Rocksteady hoped it would help with sales by banking on that Arkham nostalgia. Also, apparently, The Riddler also took time out of its day in the actual ELSEWORLD to laid out trophies to find and puzzles for you to solve. Can this guy just go away please?!?! I NEVER want to see his face ever again!
And of course, there’s the main selling point of the game, the boss fights with the evil corporate versions of the Justice League and eventually Brainiac himself. Throughout the game, you will eventually find yourself encountering with one member of the Justice League, aside from Wonder Woman, and you will have to face off against them. What should be the best part of the game is unfortunately no different than the missions you are already playing.
Sure, some of the earlier boss fights in the game are somewhat different and even fun to play. However, after the first two, it’s like the developers either ran out of money or simply stopped caring because it soon revolves to the same rinse and repeat formula. Even the final boss with Brainiac, is largely just the EXACT SAME BOSS as the very first one in the game. I’m not even joking! He even transforms in that EXACT SAME CHARACTER! How lazy can the developers possibly be!
All these fights come up to is shooting the enemy with one gun, shooting the enemy with another gun, and tossing a few grenades to increase the damage. All you have to do is perform these move sets multiple different times without too many hits and you’ll eventually get them. It’s odd how the story implies that there are only certain ways to beat the Justice League but when you can confront them, it mostly involves just doing the exact same move set you were doing when fighting previous enemies. If this is not the most washed up Justice League that’s ever existed, then I don’t know what is.
When describing the gameplay overall, it’s functional and competent but there’s no variety here whatsoever. There’s nothing here that’s aggressively glitchy, impossible to control, or inherently broken. Aside from having to get used to the different ways certain characters control along with the occasional times I would have to restart the game because my internet disconnected for a split second (Again, WHY is this live-service?!?!), there was nothing here I found inherently difficult to play or get used to. As a matter of fact, once you start to get the hang of it, there is some MILD enjoyment to be had here.
The real main issue here is it’s overall lack of innovation. It’s very clear that someone at Rocksteady and Warner Bros Games had a simple desire of wanting to match with the current trends of games that has grown accustom in the mid 2010s to now mid 2020s. The way the missions, open worlds, and amount of content both at launch and post-launch was clearly inspired by games hot at the moment such as Overwatch and Fortnite. However, where as those games were able to thrive off on unique character designs, creative mission and objective structures, and live-service elements that actually ADDED to the game rather than hinder it, Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League plays off more like if you just took these characters and plunged them into one of these worlds but remove any of the fresh and uniqueness of those games.
Once you really get the hang of the formula of the game, there’s not much here that hasn’t been done in literally every other live-action service game. Once you played all four of these different kinds of mission I mention earlier, you have basically seen everything that the game itself has to provide.
On one hand, that might be a welcome thing to certain folks. After all, in an age where Generation Z tends to have a much shorter attention span than before (and I say this as someone that is in fact part of that Generation), this kind of game is always welcome. It’s basically the perfect game to play while listening to a podcast and watch YouTube too. This was clearly aimed to cater to a certain ground that enjoys those “turn your brain off” games that involves simple button mashing.
If you are part of that group (and again no judgement here), you might enjoy this game. However, for those that were expecting even the tiniest bit of innovation on part with Rocksteady’s previous work and to not fall into the trappings that took down previous live-service superhero games such as Marvel’s Avengers and Gotham Knights, you will likely find yourself disappointed.
Of course, there is also the mention of the confirmed post-launch content (which I go into more in the Upcoming DLC section) that the game itself will provide in the form of seasons throughout the year. There has been confirmation of what Season 1 will include along with teases of what Seasons 2 through 4 will have. There’s even been leaked audio recording of certain characters that could make a surprise return or appearance.
For a while, this was the most controversial aspect of the game. Yet again, here we have a game with required online services with developers that have a hard-on for season passes and loot boxes. Much like Marvel’s Avengers, it feels as if the main full game had only scratch the surface of the main gameplay because it’s saving the extra content for the future. However, if there is one thing that Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League has over Marvel’s Avengers, it’s that that content has been confirmed to be free and you can unlock certain loot boxes and items WITHOUT having to pay more money out of your wallet.
While there are definitely loot boxes and special items that should have been unlocked at the start of the game, these are all still free and things that can be unlocked the further you play along in the game. It might take a little extra work but it’s not more work you are forced to spend a few extra dollars on, unlike say Star Wars: Battlefront II. And as I just said, the seasonal content that will be included with the game’s frequent updates is said to be completely free. No need to charge extra for the game, even if you have to wait a little longer than you should. Considering this game from the same studio that was charging a full season pass for the DLC for Batman: Arkham Knight, the fact they are allowing this all for free is quite surprising and even refreshing. Too bad we have to wait until then to see if ANY of those factors come with the seasonal content!
While certainly not as lackluster as the main story itself, the gameplay of Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League leaves PLENTY to be desired. It’s playable, functional, has and/or will have free extra content, and once you get the hang of way each character’s control and their playset, it can be enjoyable at times. The problem is that we have seen this done with MULTIPLE other games and done MUCH better in other live-service games. There’s no variety in the missions, no progression system that makes you eager to level up your characters to the highest degree, and the boss fights with the Justice League could not be more underwhelming.
It’s an absolute shame that the game itself doesn’t even bother to hide the fact that it’s basically chasing trends and Rocksteady isn’t trying to be as inventive as it once was. Whether this is their doing or Warner Bro Games’ doing is beyond me but it still stinks regardless. If the main objective of Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League was to prove that live-service superhero games can in fact work, it failed spectacularly.
Graphics:
Normally, I would say the graphics for Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League are about as good as it can be for a next-gen 2024 game. After all, the environments look good, the models for the characters fit their designs incredibly well, the cutscenes are delivered at top notch, high quality, and the fact I’m able to see Metropolis exist in the Arkhamverse makes it itself a treat for the eyes. However, following Batman: Arkham Knight, which set a high standard for quality in terms of graphics that still hold up SPECTACUARLY nine years later, I can help but see it as quite a downgrade. Expectations on that front was always gonna be near impossible to match but it really doesn’t seem like anyone at Rocksteady even attempted to top or at least match it, which is the most unfortunate.
I understand that perhaps Rocksteady was wanting to go with more of a cartoon or comic book-like style considering this was meant to be a more gloriously excessive game that didn’t take itself as seriously as the other Batman: Arkham games but I kinda expected the next best thing to come in terms of the advanced technology they have worked on since 2015 and it doesn’t really show here. The game itself looks, sounds, and moves just fine (at least when your internet doesn’t disappear for a split second or later), but for those expecting the next best looking thing after Arkham Knight will likely be disappointed.
Sound:
The score for this game was done by composers Nick Arundel and Rupert Cross. Arundel returns here after doing prior gaming scores with Rocksteady with Arkham Asylum, City, and Knight. Cross, on the other hand, had done prior works in other entertainment medium such as theater (Hamlet, Frozen, Macbeth), television (101 Dalmatian Street, Everything Now), and film (Thor, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Brave,Cinderella (2015), and Beauty of the Beast (2017)). Kill The Justice League marks only the second score for a video game he’s ever done, with his first being 2013’s Puppeteer. Despite having proven talent to do the score, I couldn’t help but feel the score was lacking.
While it does it’s job as delivering a more rock-and-funk feel to the whole game, I can’t recall very many tracks that stuck with me or made me want to go out of my way on my own time to listen to them on YouTube. The main track that stood out for me was Batman’s theme when he first appeared in the Suicide Squad’s first encounter, even if it felt like an unuse track in one of the Christopher Nolan’s Batman movie. There are also a couple of decent tracks with the Justice League themselves but aside from that, the score is serviceable at best and forgettable at the worst.
I knew this would have a different style of music compared to the prior Batman: Arkham games but it’s baffling how not one track stuck with me the way the best tracks of those games were able to stick with me and even the not-so-great tracks did.
The voice work in this game is very strong. Nearly every actor and actress notable here are able to fit their role perfectly and have their voices completely match the designs of the characters and the dialogue given to them. With at least one notable exception (which I will get into), almost every voice actor suits their role very well. The biggest standouts come from the Justice League themselves, so much so that it makes you wish you were playing a full game with them.
Nolan North is able to be as perfect as Superman as he is as Nathan Drake, Deadpool, and the Penguin (which he also returns as). He perfectly captures that sense of hope and optimism that the Superman character always stands for and even works when presented as evil superman. Scott Porter is able to get the game’s best laughs as The Flash, Dan White fits well as the John Stewart version of Green Lantern, and Zehra Fazal brings such raw charisma as Wonder Woman. And of course, even though having an evil Batman presence could not have come at a worse time, Kevin Conroy gave it his all as this more twisted version of Batman, clearly having an absolute blast in the role the whole way through. The Suicide Squad team along with the rest of the cast don’t measure as high as the Justice League members but they all do fine work (Even though I wish folks would bother to redesign video game characters played by Debra Wilson), with one notable exception.
That exception is no other than Tara Strong as Harley Quinn. I’m just gonna come out and say it….I can’t stand her as Harley Quinn. I’ve tried given her the benefit of the doubt many times in the past when voicing this character but I can no longer do that. Her HQ’s voice is just way too raspy, ridiculously high pitched, and sounds more like she’s trying to impersonate a cartoon character rather than just sounding like…..a person. And no, the fact that Mrs. Strong has revealed herself to be not so bright doesn’t factor into my opinion on her as the Joker’s pudding, she is simply not a good Harley Quinn whatsoever. Arleen Sorkin (May that angel RIP!), Margot Robbie, and Kaley Cuoco are the real trio of the Harley Quinn Hall of Fame!
Upcoming DLC:
As previously mentioned, Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League will be provided with plenty of additional content that will expand the overall gameplay of the regular game. This will come in the form of seasonal passes that will be updated as the year goes on. All of these will be divided into four separate seasons that will unlockable new playable characters, new playable environments, new boss fights, new weaponry, new missions and activities, and even *shivers* new Riddler content because….why not.
Season 1 in particular has been confirmed to have a Joker from another elseworld as a playable character, new boss fights with the likes of Green Lantern and Superman, new playable environments, new dc villain themed weapons, new activities/strongholds, new Riddler content, and even two episodes with fan-favorite villains such as Two-Face and Scarecrow. Seasons 2 to 4 have not had much detail of it’s content just yet aside from most of the kind of content already mentioned but I wouldn’t be surprised to see us back in the Arkham Gotham that we all know and love.
Like with Marvel’s Avengers and even EA’s Star Wars: Battlefront 2, I’m sure this expansion of content might be good enough to improve the quality of the game for a good number of folks. Especially since, in this case, this is all said to be completely free content with no need to buy multiple passes or loot boxes.
On one hand, credit for Rocksteady to be able to avoid that trapping of trying to needlessly squeeze more money out of consumers, even if they couldn’t avoid the other ones. But considering the way that these along with other leaks gives confirmation that certain events from the game might be undone or rewritten entirely, it might just make the overall point of this game feel pointless. Even if those that hated the game will find themselves won over after certain characters are confirmed to be not dead after all, even they will wonder why this was made as DLC or seasonal content and not for say….it’s own actual game.
I don’t know if I will make a piece in the future once all this content is made available but considering it’s suppose to be free, I will certainly tried them out once they are released. Even if Rocksteady was basically forced by Warner Bros Games to make a game that rely heavily on live services and online action to chase the trends of Overwatch and Fortnite, this might’ve been the best results of this we could possibly get given the dire circumstances that surrounded it all.
Conclusion:
Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League feels like a game that was basically doomed from the start. Not just because this was a game nearly a decade in the making and following Rocksteady’s previous track record with their successful Batman: Arkham games but it was basically by design made to chase the worst kind of trends in modern gaming imaginable. It does some of those trends better than most but like most, it’s own restrictions holds it back from its true potential.
It may get the job done by offering a typical action and shoot-them-up game for those that crave for it but it really doesn’t bother to be anything much else than that and basically hopes the upcoming seasonal content will be enough to save the day. And considering the vital reaction this game has gotten online, it will take a LOT of convincing for folks to get this game another chance once the expansion of content have arrived.
If Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League is the DC equivalent of Marvel’s Avengers, then we can only hope that Monolith’s Wonder Woman will be the DC equivalent of Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, a superhero licensed game that ends up being a pleasant surprise following a previous underwhelming superhero licensed game.
That being said, I sure can’t wait until Marvel responds to this game by making the game, Thunderbolts: Kill The Avengers game. That will SURELY be a banger!
If there is one medium that was able to shine quite a bright light in the world of cinema, that would be animation. 2023 was an absolutely phenomenal year for animation! Regardless of what your favorite animation studio consists of, you were likely satisfied with at least one of their works in 2023. This is the first time in a while that whenever I hear someone say what their favorite animated film of the year is, I would have a legit hard time arguing with them. I could see almost any reason for any of the films I have on this list being someone’s absolute favorite of the year. If there comes a time where it’s time for cinema to quit underestimating the power of animation, that would be now!
To celebrate all the magnificent achievements in cinematic animation this year, I decided to go over my nine favorite animated motion pictures of the year! Regardless, these are nine animated films that are worth checking out if you haven’t already!
The Super Mario Bros. Movie
Acting as the highest grossing animated film of 2023, The Super Mario Bros. Movie is the one video game movie that feels like it was 100% ripped straight from the games in terms of it’s animation, style, world building, and amount of fan service throughout. It even works quite well as a simple story of a complete zero turning into a complete hero along with the importance of brotherhood. It’s just so much fun seeing characters such as Mario, Princess Peach, Donkey Kong, and Toad kicking butt together on the big screen for the first time ever. Not even the common tropes from Illumination Animation that brought down their prior movies such as an obvious celebrity heavy voice cast and awkwardly inserted song tracks are able to bring this one down, which likely has to do with Nintendo’s influence. I don’t know how I would feel about this movie if I wasn’t a Mario but since I am, I couldn’t help but be very satisfied with this movie.
Suzume
Makoto Shinkai was at it again in 2023 with Suzume and once again he was able to deliver big time! This is a gorgeous and beautiful film where Shinkai once again lets his imagination and ambitions run wild in the form of animation, proving once again why he is once of the best animation folks in the business and why animation is in fact real cinema. Suzume acts wonderfully as a touching coming-of-age tale along with a strong mediation on grief and dealing with loss, with a strong emotional core as it’s center with it’s lead character of Suzume herself. If you are a die hard fan of Makoto Shinkai, then I can’t think of a reason that you will not love this movie. Even if you are not a fan at all, give this one a shot and you might be surprise how much this will engage and move you.
Elemental
Perhaps it has to with personal life experiences throughout 2023 for me but I most certainly believe that Elemental will stand the test of time as being an absolute gem of Pixar’s library. Maybe not the very best but definitely one that plenty will find to be another worthy addition to their library. It’s looks gorgeous, it’s very charming, the characters are engaging, the music is beautiful, and even the similar themes it tackles are done very well and might even stand out greater than other Disney and Pixar films that have done it to some people. I’m sure glad this film was able to have strong legs at the box office as this might be an encouraging sign for Pixar’s future in movie theaters. I might have not enjoyed The Good Dinosaur but director Peter Sohn was able to win me over in Round Two with Elemental. If you haven’t checked it out yet, I highly recommend it.
Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken
Here’s a movie that Universal basically left to die! With little to no marketing and only given a 17-day theatrical window before it made it’s way to VOD, Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken was a movie that was very easy to miss because it looks as though the studios were wanting you to do exactly that. Which is a shame because judging the film on it’s own merits, it’s actually pretty good all things considered. The animation is bright and colorful, the characters are all likeable, and even if the story feels like a more diet version of Luca and Turning Red, it still works completely well as it’s own thing that it doesn’t hurt the enjoyment. It’s far from the best movie on this list or of Dreamworks library but if you were one of those that dismiss this film or were unaware of it’s existence, I’d say check it out and I think you’ll have a decent time with it.
Nimona
Disney’s trash turned out to be Netflix’s treasure with this animated fantasy adventure in Nimona. A movie made for kids that pulls no punches and will likely find a bigger audience with teens and young adults due to the film’s own subject matter and mature themes that come to play. It’s beautifully animated, incredibly engaging, has messages and representation that feels genuine, stellar voice work from Chloe Grace Moretz and Eugene Lee Yang, and Nimona herself is one of the most generally lovable protagonists in recent memory, managing to being the right kind of an “obnoxious” character. If this truly is Blue Sky Studio’s last film they ever do, not only is it grateful that they got to see their final work in a complete form but they were able to save their best film for last in the form of Nimona! Disney will certainly regret letting this film get away from them!
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
Of all the feature films that have we have gotten so far involving the TMNT brand, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is probably the very best one since the 1990 original. The animation is top notch, learning the “right” lessons from Into the Spider-Verse, the characters are all well-utilized, defined, and bounce off each other perfectly, the story feels fresh yet faithful to the turtles themselves, the score is absolutely killer, the action is a lot of fun to sit through, and it’s able to exist in it’s own sandbox as being the kind of thing that can stand proudly on it’s own along with being among the best of what the Ninja Turtles have offered throughout their history. While I won’t go as far to say that it’s a perfect film in it’s own rights, it’s certainly a perfect TMNT film and one that will likely be the one to get a new generation into this successful running franchise. And if the next film and the new 2D series that’s in the works is as good as Mutant Mayhem, then this next wave of Ninja Turtles fans will have plenty to be spoiled by!
The Boy and the Heron
Perhaps the biggest animated film at the moment, The Boy and the Heron is another winner from the creative minds at Studio Ghibli. This makes for easily one of the best English dub anime flicks in recent memory, with the entire cast of Robert Pattinson, Mark Hamill, Gemma Chan, and Dave Bautista giving very strong vocal performances. Hayao Miyazaki succeeds once again in telling story that feels as witty as it is tragic, knowing how to balance both distinct tones and making it’s core set of characters feel more human than you could imagine. It’s not my absolute favorite from Miyazaki, with some issues in terms of pacing and certain story beats, but The Boy and the Heron is definitely worth your time and should be seen in a theater. Between this and the previously mentioned Suzume, it’s nice to see more animated films made outside of America getting the recognition that they deserve.
Merry Little Batman
What’s this? A new Batman animated film that takes place on Christmas and puts the spotlight on Batman’s own son in Damian Wayne? You bet and believe it or not, it works quite well. Nothing to get you in the holiday spirit in Gotham then a fun knock-off of Home Alone, where Damian has to learn at such a young age to become the Batman his father always wanted for him. It’s also neat to get a glimpse at a Bruce Wayne that is more happy and a Gotham City that isn’t as corrupt as before, giving the sense that Bruce had accomplished his destiny as Batman. And I don’t think the Joker has been this much fun in AGES! I’m not too crazy on the designs for most of the characters and you can definitely tell this was cater to young children, but for what it’s worth, Merry Little Batman is a cute, enjoyable superhero Christmas special that will likely put you in a good jolly mood the whole way through. It’s sure nice that this and eventually Coyote vs. Acme were able to escape the clutches of the evil Warner Bros and get released. Take that, David Zaslav!
And my pick for the best animated film of 2023 goes to…..
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
To be honest, did you really think it was going to be anything else? Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse shows that the Spider-Verse could in fact make lightning strike twice. Everyone involved with the making of this movie wanted to take everything to the next level without holding anything back and they are able to exceed greatly with a sequel that manages to be as good as Into the Spider-Verse and in some ways, even better. The animation might be the very best I’ve ever seen in any film, the entire cast is perfect with everyone feeling like they are absolutely in LOVE with their roles, Miles and Gwen are some of the most interesting, engaging, and layered protagonists in any comic book film, the themes and morals of the story still resonate and fits the core elements of Spider-Man perfectly, and there’s plenty of well earned fan service throughout that never gets in the way of the main central storyline. While it does end on an obvious cliffhanger, it will no doubt make anyone excited to see how they will wrap up the story in the third and final installment. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is the best animated film of the year and one of the very best films of the year, period! Bring on Beyond the Spider-Verse
Also, to Phil Lord, Chris Miller, and the those at Sony Animation, PLEASE treat your animators right this time! Don’t put them through hell like you did with Across the Spider-Verse! We all can wait and be patience if it has to take a few more years for the next film to come out! Let’s not encourage crunch culture any longer and make sure the animators are treated with respect next time around! Please and thank you!
Adam's Blog 