It is safe to say that superhero hype is already way past its prime. It is also safe to say that live service AAA games are now considered a black sheep in the gaming industry, and a surefire way to make a developer and publisher lose a ton of money and credibility. Just look at a big example, Square Enix’s Avengers game. It came out, wasn’t well-received by critics and the public, sold below expectations, wasn’t lucrative enough to recoup its bloated and imbecile development costs, and has already had its servers shut down. Square Enix even decided to sell its developer to another company in order to recoup some of that failed investment.

So, let me ask you the following. If a live service game released before peak superhero saturation, featuring the hottest IP in the world at the time, failed to make a splash, what was going on inside the head of Warner Bros’ superiors when they thought that Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, released amidst negative speculation, backlash towards live services, and overall disdain towards both DC Comics and its parent company, would be any different? Of course, this didn’t manage to live up to expectations. And I’m talking about my expectations in particular, which weren’t high to begin with.

This game reeks with overall vibe that Rocksteady, the studio behind it, was clearly not willing to actually engage with it. It screams “mandated by higher-ups”. It was probably greenlit many years ago, during that bizarre period when the Suicide Squad franchise was quite popular, despite the fact its movie was admittedly terrible. Sorry David Ayer, you may try to convince us otherwise, but it was lame as hell. Every single girl was dressed as Harley Quinn for Halloween; they were all calling themselves “daddy’s little monsters”. People turned that Will Smith line into a meme. We were laughing at Jared Leto’s abhorrent portrayal as the Joker…

…And WB decided to green-light a live service based on it. Why was Rocksteady, known for single-player action-adventures, the one forced to do this? They are clearly uncomfortable with the source material, especially since they had to figure out a way to include its characters, as well as the Justice League, into their widely acclaimed (and clearly finished) Arkhamverse.

Adding the Justice League to the Arkhamverse just made sure to cripple the plot of the previous games in the franchise. Why would Superman or Green Lantern allow for Gotham to become an open air prison? Why only mention the League now? What kind of crappy reasoning for Batman to even join the League in the first place is this one? Suffice to say, this plot feels rushed and half-baked. Someone told Rocksteady to figure out a way to include the Justice League in a Batman-centric universe, and make some sense out of it. It doesn’t. The fact we are playing as the Suicide Squad barely makes sense to begin with as well.

For some reason, every single character in the game loves to call the titular Suicide Squad a bunch of buffoons, idiots, under-powered imbeciles. While I do agree that Harley Quinn is all of the above, you can also play as a Deadshot (a highly skilled assassin trained in modern warfare), Captain Boomerang (who’s a schmuck, but also has access to the Speed Force for the stupidest of reasons), and King Shark, who is a super-powered, nigh-invincible son of a deity. It makes no sense at all. The way Amanda Waller treats them as nobodies makes no sense at all. Furthermore, the team’s banter-plastered dialogue is something which should be used by secret organizations as a method of torturing people for information.

Let me clarify that most voice acting performances aren’t technically bad, but they are ruined by one of the worst scripts I’ve ever seen. This makes Borderlands‘ idiocy sound like Monty Python. The voice actors behind King Shark and Deadshot actually deliver good performances, as they aren’t jokesters. Harley and Boomerang are, and oh boy, they do not shut up. Whenever they opened their damn mouths, I cringed. The late, great Kevin Conroy is also wasted on a really underwhelming performance as a mind-controlled Batman. The soundtrack isn’t anything worth mentioning, and sound effects are just average at best.

So, what is this game about? Well, you choose one of four members of the Suicide Squad (more will be added further down the line, but you won’t hear any opinions from me after I’m done with this review), in a journey to save Metropolis, and the world as a whole, from Brainiac, who has brainwashed basically every single member of the Justice League, with the exception of Wonder Woman. So there is an evil Batman, an evil Superman, an evil Green Lantern. Again. We are back to the plot of Injustice 2, a game released like seven years ago. I am starting to think there isn’t a lot of room for creativity when doing a Justice League-themed game. You can either play as them, or have Brainiac turn them into fascists.

The gameplay, you may be asking? Your run-of-the-mill third-person shooter live service, with the option of four-player online co-op. That means that, even if you want to play the game by yourself, you need to log into a server. To literally no one’s surprise, there are server and connection issues, even though the game isn’t even registering a high player count as of the time of writing. It’s a baffling decision that feels almost like poetic justice to a game nobody wanted to be made: very few people are playing it, and even those few are struggling to log in.

To Rocksteady’s credit, they did deliver on some aspects. I won’t say that the controls aren’t responsive, for instance. Some traversal mechanics are actually really fun. It all depends on the character you are playing as. In essence, what little you can enjoy of this game will highly depend on who you decide you play as. Deadshot was a legitimately fun time. So was King Shark. Boomer and Harley, not so much.

Deadshot, for instance, has access to fast-paced, automatic, and responsive rifles, which make his combat system feel generic, but quite decent. He also has access to a stupdendously overpowered grenade launcher, a sniper rifle, and the créme de la créme of his gadget cabinet: a jetpack. Moving around through the map as Deadshot is quite fun as a result. The same can be said about King Shark. Well, aside from the jetpack bit, but still. He has unbelievably high and long jumps which reminded me of traversing through the map in Hulk: Ultimate Destruction. His melee skills are neat, and he also has access to a machinegun. If you want to play this game, well, don’t, but if you really want to, stick to either of these two fellas.

Boomer’s traversal mechanics are quite bad. He can use the Speed Force (he has a gauntlet that lets him do so, and it’s stupid) to cross huge gaps, but the mechanics feel clunky and half-baked. His main weapon is also… a shotgun. Because that is what clearly comes to mind when you think of a dude named Captain Boomerang. Harley Quinn uses the same grappling hook Batman used in the Arkham games, plus a drone that allows you to perform an extra swing whenever there are no buildings to latch your hook onto. Her gameplay feels the most generic, and that might be due to her source material.

No matter who you decide to play as, you need to take into account that every single ultra generic AAA live service crap is grafted onto the gameplay. Some of these include obnoxious and never-ending skill trees, bullet sponge enemies the further you progress through the game, long connection times even when you’re playing by yourself, an overreliance on big flashy numbers to indicate you’re doing more damage than before, and a ton of unnecessary loot. In essence, everything you hate the most about live services is featured and promoted in Suicide Squad. Everything you thought was bad in Gotham Knights is exponentially worse in Suicide Squad.

In fact, it’s hard not to compare both games, especially given how harshly Gotham Knights was received upon release. Whilst I’m not trying to say that game was devoid of flaws (it sure wasn’t), it was a lot more enjoyable and better designed than Suicide Squad. Characters felt more interesting to play as, with different playstyles which suited your preferences in superhero games. It also had a great plot, unlike this one.

I also liked that version of Gotham more than Suicide Squad‘s Metropolis. Even though the latter looks technically better, all thanks to Rocksteady still being a more talented developer, the city just wasn’t fun to fool around in. The best thing about Gotham Knights‘ gameplay loop was merely looking for crimes during a patrol. I did not feel the urge to look for crap to do in Suicide Squad. It may have also been due to some glitches and questionable visual decisions.

The screen is always plastered with too much information. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League loves to shove its UI with pointless tutorials, menus, lines of information and suggestions of where to go and what to do next. Even Ubisoft, once know as the kings of shoving unnecessary crap onscreen, have finally learned their lesson and allowed for visual modes with minimal onscreen interfaces. This game just goes for the full live service model of just making the play screen look like a stock market at times. It’s not constant, but it happens often enough. The framerate is also occasionally wonky, even though I am way above the recommended specs for it.

I wanted to leave my two biggest gripes for last. First of all, let’s talk about the constant instances in which Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League disappointed me when it seemed like it was actually going to showcase some semblance of good writing, or an interesting setpiece. I actually liked King Shark and Deadshot as characters, for instance. Deadshot is the archetype of the straight-up no-nonsense guy in the team (basically what Ric Flagg was in the movies). He just HAD to ruin some of his best moments with boring monologues, or being interrupted by dumb banter, more often than not regarding the fact there used to be another Deadshot in the Arkhamverse, a white one. That’s one of many instances in which Suicide Squad‘s best moments are ruined by its poor pacing and ludonarrative dissonance.

The other big gripe: microtransactions. Oh yeah. They are here, and they are everywhere. WB Games really wants you to spend a lot of money in this waste of time of a service, with most of its in-store collectibles, skins and power-ups costing ludicrous prices. Let me remind you this game is already expensive. It goes for a full price tag, and it even has season passes. We are in 2024, we are way past the era in which we could stomach such practices, but WB had to pull off another Shadow of War. Because of course.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is the worst kind of AAA game. It was clearly mandated from higher-ups. It’s incredibly obvious that this was not what Rocksteady wanted to do, as this game, like other lame AAA live services before it (Redfall comes to mind), feels uninspired, unfocused. What’s worse, Rocksteady really tried to come up with some good things, such as Deadshot’s admittedly fun combat mechanics. Sadly, for every good thing they were able to deliver, there are two or three other elements that bring the game down several notches.

To my disdain, this is also not a complete technical trainwreck which would make me recommend it as some kind of ironic joke. This is not a Mortal Kombat 1 on Switch and it’s not a Gollum. It’s somewhat competent in its controls and visuals, and just massively disappointing everywhere else. I also don’t think the publisher deserves the pity money stemming from an ironic playthrough. This is nowhere near as bad as other AAA disasters in recent memory, but it’s easily one of the most infuriating games I’ve played in a long time. It is the worst kind of mainstream, big publisher, AAA experience. A forgettable piece of corporate boredom which will do nothing but tarnish Rocksteady’s reputation.

 

Graphics: 7.5 Really good visuals, which push Unreal Engine 4 to its limits, are somewhat hampered by a really ugly UI, underwhelming level design, and occasional framerate hiccups.	Gameplay: 7.0 Combat mechanics are really fun and responsive, whilst traversal controls are only interesting depending on the character you choose to play as. Tons of annoying live service elements kill any sense of organic growth or progression.
Sound: 6.0 The excellent voice cast is wasted on a putrid script with a ton of unfunny quips and team banter. Sound effects are just decent.	Fun Factor: 5.0 Believe it or not, this could have been great. Or at least passable. Every now and then, you see glimpses of potential, with some decent cutscenes or set pieces. Sadly, this game is ruined by an awful plot, terrible sense of humor, generic gameplay, and live service bullcrap nobody had asked for. Not to mention microtransactions.
Final Verdict: 6.0

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is available now on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.

Reviewed on Intel i7-12700H, 16GB RAM, RTX 3060 6GB.