14 DAY TRIAL // 
Rocksteady managed to create the most popular superhero videogames of all time. The Batman Arkham series are famous for their extremely fluid combat, very well thought out story arc and an unparalleled attention for detail. That is why it is so hard to explain why Warner Brothers renounced all this and chose to continue in the direction of Gotham Knights and now Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.
While in the case of Batman’s apprentices we can argue that the developers from WB Games Montreal are not the ones who built Arkham and they wanted to do something different, in the case of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League I cannot explain why Rocksteady chose to use as inspiration the recipe from Marvel Avengers. If anything, the whole fiasco surrounding the game published by Square Enix should be a cautionary tale about the dangers of abusing the live service model.
Yet here we are, with a game placed in the Batman Arkham universe starring a bunch of B-lister villains that with one notable exception are familiar only to the fans of the comic books. What most gamers hoped to be another engaging action adventure with a well-crafted single player experience turned out to be a live service with a several years long roadmap to add extra content for extra money. This of course is worrisome as an industry trend, but this game could have been a pleasant surprise if somehow Rocksteady could have avoided the common mistakes made by other titles in the past.
But even heroes are doomed to fail and the story of the Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is the best proof of that. The events pick up five years after the events from Arkham Knight with Amanda Waller, the leader of A.R.G.U.S. putting together Task Force X to save Earth from the greatest menace ever encountered. In order to eliminate the threat represented by the Justice League corrupted by Brainiac, director Waller’s greatest idea is to line up a selection of riff raff that previously have been bested and incarcerated by the very same heroes they need to face.
As such Harley Quinn, Deadshot, Captain Boomerang and King Shark are locked in a room given the illusion of choice. Of course, they end up quarrelling and injecting each other with the nano bombs controlled by Waller. Underequipped and without any traces of a plan or strategy, our anti-heroes are thrown out into a Metropolis under siege. Their mission is clear: to save the world by killing the Justice League.
From the very first moments, the game screams at the top of its lungs that it is a 4-player co-op experience. Somewhere along the road it was adapted in order to be also playable alone, but not without sacrifices. For starters the four main characters are very different in skills, both when it comes to combat and traversal. These work well if you have a group of four players, each feeling comfortable with the quirks of a specific character. If you play alone, you will most probably stick to the character that feels most comfortable to control and you will leave the rest of your team at the mercy of the AI.
The fact that Deadshot has limited flight abilities, that King Shark can jump big distances, while Harley swings from a bat drone and Captain Boomerang can teleport may sound like simple gimmicks implemented to make them different, but they actually weigh a lot since the game emphasizes a vertical gameplay. If you don’t adopt mobility and jump all around while shooting you will have a hard time with the game.
It is obvious from the very first steps taken in the open world of Metropolis that the developers prioritized a highly active gameplay in order to make the action more spectacular. The result will slightly annoy a part of the audience since you are required to constantly move around, counter the attacks and also to be on the lookout for opponents that can be hurt by weapon fire only after their shields have been neutralized by a melee attack. You will also have to literally whack weakened enemies to harvest shield and ammo from them.
This feels annoying because you are bullied into doing a lot of different stuff from the very beginning without the best of tutorials. As you get used to the game mechanics and you start mastering them, the game will start to feel less tedious. And once you are comfortable with the basics you will look into other more complex elements such as the talent trees, the vulnerabilities and resistances to elemental attacks and various weapon types and modifiers. The biggest problem is that exploring the game, acquiring these perks and developing your character feels like a grind fest.
Make no mistake Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League suffers from all the issues that plague all live service games released in the past. The most evident of these is the repetitiveness of the tasks. While there is a bit of creativity when it comes to the main missions, the secondary ones put you through again and again the same chores such as defending a control point from several waves of enemies or carrying items across the map. All of the missions are minor variations of a few basic mechanisms.
Another issue is that although after the first few missions, scarcity is replaced by an abundance of loot, the upgrades feel minor. Just like any other game of this type, you will choose the equipment with the best stats, and you will return to grind the same opponents, doing the same missions just to get better equipment. And while this is a formula for many games out there, somehow amid all the chaos Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League forgot how to be entertaining.
And it is a shame because despite the fact that most main story missions are built on rails and you have to follow the exact scenario and path envisioned by the developers, the game has an engaging narrative. The back and forth between the characters are really well written and humorous, and their personalities manage to shine through. Captain Boomerang for example is one of the most annoying characters in video games history, but he plays perfectly the role he was cast in.
Another big issue with the game is its pacing. While the missions feel repetitive like battling a never-ending jawbreaker, the cutscenes tend to overstay their welcome. The writing is generally good, but watching several minutes long cutscenes is a sharp break from the non-stop action gameplay. Unfortunately, the boss battles do not improve things since they rely on figuring out patterns and sticking to them.
And if by somehow you stick it out to the endgame, your main motivation will be to go through the same battles again and again against harder and harder enemies just to farm the best loot possible. Sadly, Rocksteady did not improve on the heavily flawed recipe of the live service games that failed but embraced it entirely.
As such all the mechanics and ideas that could have served as saving grace, like the intriguing skill trees and a story that is actually interesting, all of them fall short. In the end Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is condemned to the same perception players had about Marvel Avengers. It is a rodeo of loot boxes and customization items that serve only to take more money out of your pocket without improving the gameplay experience.
The Good
- Great story with some fresh takes
- Great character design and dialogue
- Varied combat styles and interesting skill trees
The Bad
- Very basic and repetitive missions
- Not much content, which is recycled endlessly
- Very poor endgame
Conclusion
The monotonous endgame can be fixed by adding new content, but seeing the already existing one it is hard to believe that we can expect a major improvement. It is a shame that such a fresh and unexpected take on the superhero universe is wasted on a live service model that fails to fix the mistakes of the genre.
Review key provided by CD Media.
