Rocksteady’s attempt at a live service superhero story suffers from a lack of unoriginality, and serves to undo the goodwill the studio built up with.

(SPOILERS BELOW if you care. Also watch for offensive language, I get a little heated.)

This is how it happened. This is how Rocksteady Studios died.

Back in the COVID days of August 2020, DC and Batman Arkham developer Rocksteady Games revealed Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, their newest game since 2016. While fans did get a continuation of the Batman Arkham series, Rocksteady decided to go in a direction that nobody could’ve seen coming, now focusing on the villains uniting to kill Batman and the rest of the World’s Finest. It was a tough pill for many to swallow, but given Rocksteady’s previous track record, gamers were optimistic. Then Rocksteady released gameplay footage and all hell broke loose.

Not only is Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League creatively bankrupt, but the game serves little purpose other than giving Warner Bros. and Rocksteady more money. I dread the fact that I had to waste away two weeks playing something of little effort. Yet here I am, posting another negative review when I could be talking about something great, like Persona 3 Reload or Blue Eye Samurai.

A Rose By Any Other Name

From the beginning, you can tell that this game is “off”. This game is a waste of time like a joke without a punchline. If you couldn’t tell, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League doesn’t play anything close to its Arkham predecessors and is instead a third-person shooter, similar to games like Saints Row & Crackdown. You can choose from a cast of four distinct & unique characters who have their move sets boiled down to “they all use guns”. There’s a giant shark that wields a gun. Captain Boomerang, who prioritizes guns over his boomerangs, and Deadshot, who feels like the only character who should be using guns. The choice of prioritizing gunplay feels like a letdown and makes the game less special as a result. Compare this to Marvel’s Avengers (which is a phrase that you’ll be hearing me say a lot), and it feels like we’re progressing backwards. At least in a shitshow like Marvel’s Avengers, they gave each hero a distinct play style. For example, Hulk can smash, thunderclap, and stomp on countless enemies but in Kill the Justice League, King Shark can occasionally do something like that but usually relies on his minigun or rocket launcher. Also, a negative that a lot of people had with Avengers is that you were fighting the same variety of enemies in every mission, so Rocksteady decided to use the four years from Avengers and basically change nothing. Yeah, for a game called Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, you’re barely fighting them, instead, you’re relegated to fighting Brainiac’s cronies across Metropolis, and it gets old, really fast.

To be fair, I do like the backdrop of Metropolis. Combined with the focus on gunplay & vertical traversal, the city feels optimized to help support the gameplay as much as possible. You can tell that Rocksteady had plenty of fun sneaking in building references, easter eggs with hero interactions, and it’s a breath of fresh air to be out of the bleak slums of Gotham, yet it doesn’t feel fully utilized. Even though I like the map, it doesn’t stop everything else from feeling redundant. It’s supposed to be a superhuman warzone, and yet feels like an unfinished mod for Left for Dead 2. Also if I could touch upon graphics, how does Batman: Arkham Knight, a game from 2015, look more visually stunning than this 2024 release

The biggest fault of the gameplay is that for the 20 hours I sunk into Kill the Justice League, about like 2 hours was filled with actual memorable content (ironically, it all revolved around Batman). Every mission was basically a variation of “there’s a horde of enemies approaching, fill in the rest.” This is 80% of the general gameplay, and if it sounds like I’m repeating myself, that’s because there’s nothing special. Sure you can mod the guns so they give off a special effect, but I barely felt like experimenting if the enemies didn’t challenge me to change up my existing playstyle. Like guys, I don’t care if you introduce another variant of enemy goon when they have like one or two new moves and look slightly different, they all just fall into another brick in the wall that’s preventing me from enjoying myself. This is why Kill the Justice League will fail. It’s the same reason that Marvel’s Avengers failed. You prioritize a weak, hastily made gameplay system and have your entire game swear its life upon it to succeed, but when players start to leave, you’re left clueless as another hoard of forgettable target fodder arrives.

Of Course, There’s a Battle Pass…

Do you wanna know the other reason why Marvel’s Avengers failed? There was an excessive focus on microtransactions & the enforcement of a battle pass. Yes. In a $90 game (at least in good old Canada), Warner Bros. and Rocksteady still needed to shoe in microtransactions & add in a battle pass system. Sure you could make the argument and say that they only help with cosmetics and that a Battle Pass helps keep players from leaving. Well, my issue with the Battle Pass is that you’re promoting cosmetic changes and upgrades separately, even though the base game rarely had any cosmetics for me to use. You know it’s bad when after BEATING THE GAME, the only extra skin I had for my Harley Quinn build was her OG skin but with yellow Kryptonite hastily pasted throughout her body.

Also, let’s talk about the future of this game while we’re here. With news of the new playable characters introducing themed Battle Passes, I find it extremely unlikely that these will keep your player base from staying. From footage that was both shown by Rocksteady & from leaked audio footage, we can assume that we’re getting the following updates soon:

• A Joker-based Metropolis, filled with gag traps & smiling goons (that will probably still play & look like Brainiac goons).
• A frozen Metropolis based on Mr. Freeze or Killer Frost (personally hoping for the latter).
• A universe based on the Batman Arkham games, which could either be Killer Croc, Scarecrow, or (from what leaks are telling us) Deadshot’s daughter, which will prob play just like him.
• Some sandy apocalyptic Metropolis, which some people believe to be Deathstroke, just because there’s some closure from the ending of Arkham Origins.

Now, if I were a developer at Rocksteady, I personally wouldn’t bank on just giving my already existing map a new shade of brown and call it a day. At least with Marvel’s Avengers, the expansions offered new backdrops to pummel and fight evil in. From a distorted future to the streets of Wakanda, you can tell that these were planned as expansions, yet for Kill the Justice League, it feels like they took content already from the game and pushed it aside as “future content”. Why? Just so they could sell you on Battle Pass costumes like a Deathstroke skin for Harley, or a Bane suit for King Shark, and it’s a practice that makes me sick. It would be at least understandable if the game was free, but on top of the $90 that you spent, you’re stuck either grinding out the same enemies, or giving WB and Rocksteady more cash just so you can keep climbing the evergrowing ladder.

Story Suicide

There’s been this ugly trend at the dawn of the new decade where superhero franchises became this magnet for lazily made live service games. It’s a model that encourages rushed development and if the game gets enough support, the developers will eventually fix the issues years after players had initially left, and there’s no bigger victim from this style of development than the story. I mean where do I even start?

Well, how about the fact that a bunch of B-list villains are apparently the only people capable of stopping the World’s Greatest Superheroes? You’re fighting literal gods with a guy who shoots good, and a chick with a mallet. I mean Batman alone dispatches half of the team across the Arkham games, and now they’re capable of taking him out? Now I’m not stupid, I know why they chose the most marketable people in the team to be the lead characters, yet I feel like there should’ve been a better way to integrate them into the story. The characters feel empty and I never saw a reason to like them outside of “that line they said was funny”. Remember that you’re still playing as the villains, who do a whole slew of questionable shit throughout the game, yet the game parades them as honourable when the time is needed.

Not complaining about the performances, they were all decent, yet they fell victim to the awful script & dialogue. Actors like Tara Strong & my personal MVP Nuufolau Joel “Joe” Seanoa (a.k.a Samoa Joe) give a well-meaning performance but they say the stupidest shit sometimes. I don’t know if it’s an issue within Rocksteady, something from Warner directly, or if this Sweet Baby company that keeps popping up is to blame. Regardless, the already hollow missions are given no narrative direction, the dialouge feels amateurish, and if i’m being honest, the script doesn’t go anywhre interesting or fun. Imagine if someone like Deadshot was more honourable, trying to get out to see his daughter and play fair, or have someone like Harley Quinn conflicted on killing Batman, now that the roles are reversed.

I can also mention how most of what you accomplish in this game never has any repercussions. You go to kill The Flash, yet Brainiac ends up making Flash clones to wreak further havoc. Or when you’re tasked to save Lex Luthor, he ends up dying but he shows back up because of multiverse shenanigans. It feels like padding for the already dull missions, but your progress barely moves. Also, STOP WITH THE MULTIVERSE.

Yes, the multiverse is in this game, and there’s no proper reason why it exists. It feels as tacked on as the combat, and exists for the sole purpose of ruining your game. See, after you kill the Justice League, you go to fight Brainiac but it’s revealed that Brainiac can’t be killed because he exists in 13 SEPARATE DIMENSIONS and as long as his being exists, he will always return. So you go to fight one of the Brainiacs (which serves as a reskin of The Flash fight) and the game ends (I shit you not) with Amanda Waller, your handler, being the one to kill Brainaic and she tells you to kill the other 12. Only you can’t because those fights are being saved for later updates. YOU CAN’T BEAT THE GAME BECAUSE THE DEVELOPERS DIDN’T DEVELOP AN ENDING! This is the part that broke me. I paid $90 and I wasn’t given an ending, a payoff, or any form of comeuppance for the two weeks wasted playing the equivalent of a Batman-themed lobotomy.

and speaking of Batman…

Bombs Over Batman

For many fans, the passing of Kevin Conroy was one that was as unexpected as it was heartbraking. So it was a great moment for fans of the Dark Knight when Rocksteady paid their respects to the late actor in a gameplay reveal, alongside confirmation that the late Kevin Conroy would voice Batman one last time for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. Kevin had been the voice of the franchise that allowed Rocksteady to grow, and helped the Bat gain further relevance in pop culture.

So let me tell you how soul crushing it is to see Rocksteady drain the life out of any respect they had for Batman, and all the fans that wanted to celebrate one of their favourite franchises.

I mentioned previously that Kill the Justice League works as a sequal to Batman: Arkham Knight, yet the game retcons and ignores almost everything about Arkham Knight, including the most crucial aspect, the ending. On top of that, plenty about the Arkham universe, the characters, and most of all, Batman himself are presented in a way that feels like Rocksteady personally walked up to every person who bought their games and said “Fuck You”. For one, the constant bad mouthing of Batman here is insane. I’m not just talking about from the main charcaters (they’re villains so it’s a given), but almost all of your allies treat Batman like some street trash, and that nothing prior to this game mattered. Even when Batman shows off his contingency plans to neutralize the league, the scene’s played off for jokes instead of showing us how selfless Batman is, given the situaition of him accepting his death. Also don’t get me started on poor Robin, who’s presumed dead (killed off screen mind you) & is never elaborated on if he’s okay.

But the worst, and by far the most infamous thing that this game will be remebered for, is after you defeat Batman, you’re forced to sit there, and watch Harley Quinn berate and talk down to Batman, talking about how she’s in the right because Batman killed her boyfirend, a genocidal madman mind you, and watch in horror as the caharacter that you’ve spent a decade playing as get one right between the eyes. It’s insulting to the fans, to Kevin Conroy, who put his heart into this role for decades, and this heartbraking moment gets pushed aside as you’re immediatley dragged into a boss fight with Superman, as if Batman was an afterthought.

If there’s one thing that Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League will be remembered for, it’s that it was an inferior copy of a product that wasn’t even good to begin with. It tarnishes the DC Universe and the Batman Arkham games. It spits on the legacy of Batman’s greatest actor, and to those expecting a worthy payoff. Hell, it makes Gotham Knights look enjoyable I do not reccomend this game to anyone, not at full price, not at any discount rate. Don’t even bother touching it when the updates eventually roll out & retcons a lot of what people hate, because no leaks and future updates can save this game from the reputation that this shitstorm has, and for all the lost hours I wasted when I could be doing something actually worth my time, like watching paint dry. This game was a definite dumpster fire, and the best part about this game was that I was issued a full refund.

2/10

(the two is for the two middle fingers that I give Rocksteady Studios for ruining the Arkham Universe)