HomeNewsSuicide Squad: Kill the Justice League
Rocksteady downplay live service elements of Suicide Squad, as superhero murder sim goes into early access"We don’t want the game to feel like a life commitment"
“We don’t want the game to feel like a life commitment”
Rocksteady and Warner’s much-disparaged live service superhero snuff fantasySuicide Squad: Kill The Justice Leaguegoes into Deluxe-preorder-only early access today, Monday 29th January, at 9pm, or if you’re from the UK or US east coast, Tuesday 30th January at 12am ET and 12 GMT. Non-Deluxe peons get to play it from Friday 2nd February. With just a handful of hours till the initial release we still don’t have review code, which is generally a good sign that a publisher thinks the game in question is going to get a mild-to-severe kicking.
I like the sound of all this, but the proof will be in the pudding, and the pudding in this case appears to be the usual, live service trifle of seasonal content via battle passes and assorted endgame malarkey. Studio director Darius Sadeghian did share a little about how Suicide Squad will make time for players who can’t afford to treat it like a job. For one thing, you’ll be able to go back and sample the offerings from each season after the season ends: this includes the two “episodes” added with each season, which will be a mixture of new gear, new missions and new boss fights, all free to download. Paid-for battle pass offerings will consist exclusively of cosmetics and premium currency.
The live service game sector is in a difficult place. 2023 was not a banner year for such projects - long-established contenders likeDestiny 2and Fortnite have seen lower-than-hoped returns, contributing tolayoffs at Epicandto a potential Sony takeover at Bungie. There has been a slew of delays and cancellations, with Sonypushing back six of 12 planned live service projects to mid-2026 or later, and Segajunking the promising Hyenas.
While players have long moaned about games that feel less like coherent artworks than indefinite content-delivery mechanisms, it does feel like the pushback is reaching critical mass. There are simply too many of the things, and following them all is exhausting -Diablo 4’s seasonal update logs are novellas in bullet points. I think a lot of the dislike for these games comes from the perception that the service game aspects have been cruelly imposed on teams who might otherwise make, say, a new SP-focussed superhero game that doesn’t require or even expect you to sign in every week to get your fill of add-ons. Given that Rocksteady are celebrated for making games like the latter, there’s the risk of Suicide Squad becoming a poster child for hostility towards GaaS in general.
