Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League was an incredibly unpopular game, a microtransaction-laden, feature-incomplete attempt at a live-service game from a well-regarded team that had never done one before.

To no one's surprise, the negative reception to Suicide Squad was immediately followed by murmurings from Rocksteady that they never actually wanted to do a live-service and that Warner Bros. heavily pressured them to include certain predatory elements.

Suicide Squad Killed The Passion Of Two Designers

via Rocksteady

In a recent interview with Bloomberg, two ex-developers from Rocksteady opened up about how soul-destroying the development cycle for Suicide Squad was for people within the studio.

Essentially, the longer the game took to develop, the bigger the budget became, and the more anxious Warner Bros became to recoup the money it had invested. This resulted in executive pressure on Rocksteady to monetise their game in obtrusive ways, which led to a lot of player backlash when the game finally launched.

"That's when I started feeling like I wasn't making games anymore," said Axel Rydby, who began the project as a lead designer before eventually becoming the game's director. "I was following a spreadsheet, some elusive marketing analysis spreadsheet that no one could present clearly. I kind of felt like this isn't the gaming industry I wanted to work in."

Rocksteady had been having great success with the Batman Arkham series, and had welcomed the idea of trying something new with Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. However, the team wasn't thrilled with the mandate that the game be a live-service.

The development cycle wound up being a nightmare as a team that focused on single-player action-adventure games was being asked to make a forever game that never ran out of content.

"We put all these hours in, but it didn't feel like the game was getting tangibly better," said former designer Johnny Armstrong. "Everyone felt like they were having to run to stand still."

A couple of delays did little to improve the game as fundamental problems remained unfixable. It's one of those nightmare scenarios where no one is happy with the game, but it has to release just so some of the development cost can be recouped.

"I felt everything drained from me," said Armstrong. "I said, I can't do this again. I don't know if I'm done with the industry, but I'm done. I could feel myself coming apart at the seams."

Related

Rocksteady Is Reportedly Working On A New Single-Player Batman Game

Rocksteady is said to be working on a new Batman game that's still "years away". In the meantime, Wonder Woman was reportedly rebooted.

Posts By  Rhiannon Bevan

Rydby also became disenchanted with the industry after shipping Suicide Squad, remarking, "I think as an industry we are severely losing our way. It used to be passion projects that you loved and hoped other people loved too. When they did, it was such an amazing feeling. It became less and less of that. It became: 'Let's hope it sells. Let's hope we get money from it.'"

Armstrong and Rydby have now teamed up to create Secret of Circadia, an RPG deckbuilder with roguelike elements. The pair have launched a Kickstarter with the goal of raising $11,447 (€10,000) to develop the game.

Like Follow Followed

Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League

Action Adventure Open-World Systems 2.5/5 OpenCritic Reviews Top Critic Avg: 59/100 Critics Rec: 21% Released February 2, 2024 ESRB M For Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Strong Language, Violence Developer(s) Rocksteady Studios Publisher(s) Warner Bros. Games
Where to play Close

WHERE TO PLAY

DIGITAL
PHYSICAL
Genre(s) Action, Adventure, Open-World Powered by Expand Collapse