Early reviews have begun getting posted as a team from Rocksteady does a press tour clarifying details about the upcoming game. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League releases on PC and consoles in a matter of weeks on February 2 but the media embargo has lifted and some reviewers have been able to speak with members of Rocksteady Studios about their early impressions while getting more information about things to come for it.
Live Service/Game as a Service
As Rocksteady does its press tour there is a question that keeps popping up for its various team members. It’s a twofold question in that Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav has previously stated that moving forward all of its games would be always-on live service games. This of course has ruffled some feathers in the gaming community as not everyone wants to play a single-player campaign that requires constant internet connectivity. To some extent then, the team is doing some damage control on what this means for the Arkhamverse-based game which is considered a somewhat follow-up to Batman: Arkham Knight.
Darius Sadeghian, studio product director at Rocksteady spoke about this and when asked by Play Magazine (GamesRadar physical publication side) seemed to sidestep the idea of the game being a live service game. Sadeghian said the following to GameRadar but also emphasized its free content while also saying “We don’t really think of our game as fitting with any particular label,”, a clear attempt to avoid the live service label and that the game is “still full of the DNA that infuses the Batman: Arkham series.”
Per GamesRadar:
“Our goal is to build a community with this game. We want each player to feel like they’re part of Suicide Squad and, more broadly, a global Suicide Squad community,” Sadeghain continued. “This has been at the core of our development and the game has been built from the ground up as an experience that can be shared with friends.”
Suicide Squad game director Axel Rydby sat down with Eurogamer and tried to clarify the topic a bit further by saying “It’s a live service game insofar as you need to be online to play it,” and also shared with Eurogamer that an offline story mode is in the works but didn’t say when this feature would roll out. Axel did, however, share a similar response as Darius. Rocksteady does seem intent on making sure players feel as if they are part of a community that exists within the DC universe and not just Arkham or an extended Batman story.
Per Eurogamer:
“Really what we wanted to make with this game was build a community around it. And we want people to not only feel like part of the Suicide Squad when they play it, but also feel like part of the larger DC Universe. That’s where we have a lot of social features that we’re not quite ready to talk about.”
Ties to Arkham:
The cat is out of the bag that Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is tied to the Arkham universe which isn’t much of a surprise to anyone given that Rocksteady Studios is already well-known for its previous Batman games. Production manager Jack Hackett, in speaking with Game Informer, expanded on this premise by sharing how there is evidence of events that transpired in Batman: Arkham Knight to be found in this game.
Per Game Informer:
“Some are in major setpiece moments during the story where details are revealed or otherwise explained. There are also a whole bunch of collectibles and details in the city which give you further information. I think, for the really dedicated story fans of the Arkham Universe, they’ll spend some time when the game’s out unpacking exactly what went on for each character. I think you’re also going to find out what happened to some characters you might not expect to pop up in this game again, but there are some pretty deep cuts from the Arkhamverse that will pop up and say hello.”
While early reviews are mixed on the overall impression of the game there is some commonality with them that the story for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is well done and its voice actors have done a good job at portraying the many iconic characters in it. However, as IGN points out, and without giving away too much, and as the game’s title implies, there are a lot of characters who don’t make it out alive in this game. IGN goes on to add that this could be problematic for future games in the Arkhamverse with so many no longer left alive. However, of course, it’s common knowledge that within comics hardly anyone ever stays dead so anything is possible there.
Per IGN:
“The best part of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League after playing it for a few hours is the story, and yes, it certainly seems like you will be killing characters you know and love. Lots of death happening. That’s also a big part of the problem I have with the entire premise. I can’t help but shake that there’s no way Rocksteady is going to let this stick. Our heroes have done terrible things. There will be a time reversal mechanic, or some alternate earth timeline that comes along and washes away all of the terrible awfulness that happened during the story.”
Per VGC:
VGC shared some similar sentiments but also went further into depth about its combat system. While not overly impressed with combat VGC was more in the middle in saying that some things, such as larger-than-life boss fights, often take place in arena-styled environments, something common to most games for boss fights. It also made the obvious comparison to Crystal Dynamics Marvel’s Avengers which was a live service game that didn’t fare too well and, to some extent, paved the way for this game.
“There’s no getting around that for Arkham fans, Suicide Squad is an entirely other beast, as stark a difference as it is being able to see the city in daylight. But being different from before doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily new, especially when it seems to be taking older ideas from both the open world action of Crackdown and a loot-based approach to gear like Marvel’s Avengers.”
On the flipside of this Rocksteady has already previously stated that there will be more characters getting added to the game after launch. It hasn’t confirmed who, or when, but players should be on the lookout for them with future updates.