After delays, early impression controversy, and years removed from Batman: Arkham Knight; Rocksteady’s next game in the DC Universe is finally here. Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League enlists you into Task Force X or as DC fans know it the Suicide Squad (Harley Quinn, King Shark, Deadshot, Captain Boomerang). In a new story set in the Arkhamverse, this game is a dramatic shift from what fans of the Batman games are accustomed to. After about a week with the game, we were left with something that did have some big stumbles but overall a better than expected third-person shooter.
The life of this game feels as though as though it was pitched as two genres of game blending together. An action shooter game with huge story set pieces that takes fans on an incredible adventure, the other part an online game that tries to incorporate small mission design and arcade reward touches to be a looter/shooter game (Borderlands, Destiny, Avengers). These two worlds never bridge each other in any sort of revolutionary way. Yet, I still had fun in each of them.
Starting with what I absolutely loved about this game. The story, it’s every bit as gripping as Batman Arkham City was. This dark take on the Arkham universe’s Justice League being controlled by Brainiac is bold. You’re fighting from the point of view as the underpowered boss fight from games where the hero takes you on in easy mode. It’s effective to feel like the bad guys who just can’t win. There’s such a hopelessness to Harley, Deadshot, Shark, and Boomerang first getting their ass handed to them by the brainwashed Green Lantern and Flash that allows you to let the squad be the your focal point of the story. As you build up your skills, each time you fight a Justice Leaguer and win it’s pretty damn vindicating. I didn’t expect to find such a long form story in this game. While the main story missions of the game can probably be done in 8-12 hrs, the overall narrative picture of this title is vast that will hopefully see a ton of content drop during the year.
SSKTJL also has arguably the best performances in video game this year. These characters even the Justice League are well written with proper casting to match. The breakout star of the game has to be Joe Seanoa (AEW’s Samoa Joe) as King Shark. His delivery with the Shark’s over literal innocence at play is incredibly entertaining and makes the group feel like a great cast performance bouncing off of it. Also, shout out to the Rocksteady team on the fidelity and life of these character models. Alive doesn’t even begin to describe how next-level they are.
The shooter part of the game is where each character uses different types of guns such as Deadshot using sniper rifles or King Shark using heavy machine guns. Rocksteady taking on mechanics from a genre they have little to no resume in could have been an utter disaster. Instead what we get are weapon types where it’s easy to find a favorite but every single one feels meaty and different. Though I wish the looter part of the game had more of an effect on this. As in one mission I was rewarded with a “Bizzaro” gun, it would have been awesome to either have this gun shoot a non-native ammo type or have a reversal of some kind. There’s always publisher mandates on how much to reward players, so to balance with micro-transactions and math I’ll never comprehend, but as with most looters at launch there’s an issue of not feeling like the reward merited the trouble. End of mission we’re rewarded with one or maybe two items as opposed to other games where the end mission rewards are more vast in quantity.
Mechanically, Rocksteady for a first time shooter game built a solid foundation. Hardly anything about the scenery, shooting, animation, or traversal feels broken. However, there is a quick emptiness that hits players who don’t play this with more people. Mission types really cycle through protect the vehicle, destroy the object, or protect the computer object long enough to download things. Destroying mini cannons and other big set pieces can be fun at first but everything at some point in this game will feel like a chore, that’s the nature of co-op online games where the ultimate goal is powering up. Boss fights are interesting variations but do get a little repetitious for fighting characters such as Flash, Superman, and Green Lantern. I did love the survival horror element of both Batman’s boss fights. After rolling credits, the endgame is interesting and full of potential. It doesn’t feel as though I’m simply aimlessly spot cleaning a map, rather I’m still part of this story taking on a continuing threat. The WB use of multiverses actually works here to incorporate the possibility of seeing more villains in the future and maybe heroes to fight.
Rocksteady put a love of DC Comics in their Arkham trilogy to a level that’s never been matched even with Insomnaic’s love of Marvel. Secret rooms that led to Arkham City, stories in newspapers that reflected villains comic fans hadn’t heard about in years, there was layer after layer that touched nearly every part of Batman’s universe. I found myself pleased with SSKTJL level of reverence for DC Comics and seeing it is still present but now expanded to Superman’s universe through Metropolis. Walking inside the Daily Planet was one of my favorite comic book loving set pieces and even the small bits told their own stories like the newspaper headlines of “Lex For President” add the comic book color to this world.
So what is the problem with the game? There are missing bits that make bigger parts of the game feel empty. This new setting of Metropolis could be just as incredible to walk through as Gotham was in the Arkham games. We never really get to explore it for the sake of exploration. When the game starts, this city is already in stage orange of armageddon, everything we could have taken in is either decimated or unrecognizable. It would have been great, much like in Arkham Knight to start out in a non-post apocalypse with the city getting worse as the story progresses. I also think forcing every character to be a shooter of some kind was a bit confining. It makes sense for Deadshot and even Boomerang to an extent Harley, but King Shark could have simply been a brawler. Having characters who only do melee might have also let Rocksteady incorporate the combat from the Batman trilogy in some way. There tons of characters in DC Comics which could have taken some of Batman’s fighting mechanics like Deathstroke or Catman.
Ultimately, I had a fun time with this game even in its most generic mission moments. While we didn’t get another single player continuation to the Arkham universe, Rocksteady manage to deliver an Arkham set story unafraid of taking risks, full of moments we never thought DC Comics would allow their characters to go through.
Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League is available now for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. (Review key provided by publisher)
