Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League has the ‘DNA’ of the Batman: Arkham series, its senior developer says.
Following several delays, Rocksteady’s superhero game Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League is now less than a month away from release. And in the run-up, its product director Darius Sadeghian appears to downplay some of the controversies surrounding the game over the past year or so. Specifically, the live-service elements that have been the source of much online debate – the need for a constant internet connection, for example, or the presence of paid-for battle passes.
Speaking to Play magazine, Sadeghian argued that its Suicide Squad game is “still full of the DNA that infuses the Batman: Arkham series” – a reference, of course, to the studio’s earlier, much-loved action adventures.
As for the live-service stuff, Sadeghian seemed at pains not to use the term itself in the interview, and instead referred to the game’s online components as a means of creating a ‘community’.
“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 said. “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.”
At the time of writing, it’s still not clear how much Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League’s battle pass will cost. On the game’s website, an FAQ page explains that there’ll be season of post-launch content, which will have ‘free tiers’ available to players, as well as ‘premium tiers’ containing cosmetic items that will be available to purchase.
In recent months, Warner Bros – the publisher of Rocksteady’s games – has said that it’s going all-in on live-service games based on its franchises.
“Our focus is on transforming our biggest franchises from largely console and PC based with three-four year release schedules to include more always-on gameplay through live services, multiplatform and free-to-play extensions, with the goal to have more players spending more time on more platforms,” CEO David Zaslav in a Warner Bros earnings call last year. “Ultimately we want to drive engagement and monetisation of longer cycles and at higher levels.”
Days after that earnings call, however, a Warner spokesperson refuted stories that its open-world Wonder Woman game, still in development, is one of the live-service games Zaslav had enthused about.
Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, Rocksteady’s Batman: Arkham spin-off, a four-player open-world action adventure featuring wayward characters Captain Boomerang, Deadshot, King Shark and Harley Quinn, was originally slated for release on 30th May 2023. A nine-month delay was then announced, though rumours that this was because Rocksteady needed time to remove its live-service elements proved to be false.
Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League is due out on 2nd February for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.
