Game review Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League by Rocksteady Studios turned out to be controversial, but it is not bad at all. It is a fast-paced shooter with an interesting story, charismatic characters, great humor, and a dynamic and exciting gameplay. Unfortunately, despite all the advantages, the game has a lot of negative feedback from people who only wanted to get a new game in the spirit of the Batman series: Arkahm series and don’t want to give anything else a chance.

Change of direction

Rocksteady Games won the favor of players with the release of one of the best superhero games ever, Batman, in 2009: Arkham Asylum, launching the new Arkhamverse, which already has three main games, a Batman prequel: Arkham Originals and several lesser-known spinoffs, such as smartphone games or VR projects.

The basis here is, of course, the Batman trilogy: Arkham trilogy from Rocksteady Games, which, in addition to Arkham Asylum (2009), also includes Arkham City (2011) and Arkham Knight (2015), which seemed to put an end to Batman’s history. Until they announced Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, which not only brings back the famous “bat” but also expands the Arkhamverse beyond Gotham.

The studio decided to move away from the usual single-player beat-em-up gameplay that was the cornerstone of the previous games and make a service game with seasons and in-game purchases, which was not well received by the community. Everyone was expecting a game in the spirit of the Arkham series, but they got something completely different.

Before the release of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, negative previews began to appear and the general prejudice of the gaming community towards the upcoming project became apparent. In addition, there was a lot of hype around the game due to the lack of codes for reviewers, although this is a common practice for such games and it is rare for game services to launch servers before a full release.

Nevertheless, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is a good game with a not too long but still fascinating story, dynamic gameplay, and a potentially bright future if Rocksteady can make the endgame more diverse.

Kill the Justice League

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is, of course, a service game, but the plot is not just for quick play through and move on to the endgame. It tells the story of the fall of the heroes and does it quite well, with tension, fun, and even elements of horror.

Suicide Squad is the first Arkhamverse game that takes the player beyond Gotham and straight into the heart of hell – Metropolis, occupied by the alien forces of the super-intelligent android Brainiac. In addition to aliens, humanity faces another great danger – the Justice League, whose members failed to defend the Earth and eventually fell to Brainiac, becoming his puppets.

As one of the last chances for humanity, the top-secret government organization A.R.G.U.S., led by Amanda Waller, creates Task Force X. This group of criminals, jokingly but not without reason called the Suicide Squad, must fulfill an impossible mission – to kill the members of the Justice League and liberate the Earth from alien invaders.

Four former inmates of the Arkham Asylum – Deadshot, King Shark, Captain Boomerang, and Harley Quinn – have to find the vulnerabilities of their former heroes and do everything they can to stop them. For this purpose, they are transferred to Metropolis.

Despite the fact that many Batman fans had already buried the plot before the release of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, it is still fascinating and even interesting. It has its strengths and weaknesses, funny and sad moments, moments of despair and incredible joy. There are also parallel dimensions with new enemies, variations of Brainiac, and maybe even our favorite characters, who knows what Rocksteady will come up with in the future.

One of the best elements of the story campaign is the interaction between the characters. They make jokes at each other, make faces at incomprehensible actions and words, and get into absurdly comical situations. This draws the player even more into their story and even causes sympathy for this group of criminals.

A view of Metropolis from above

Once in Metropolis, the four ex-convicts do what they do best – commit crimes. They search the Hall of Justice for precious or interesting things to steal, because no one will stop them. But these are not just crimes, these searches are necessary for each of the characters to find a device that will help them move around the city, because there is a lot of moving around.

The Metropolis is not the largest location in modern games, but it is still large enough to make traveling around the city on foot long and boring, and this is where one of the most fun elements of the game lies: air travel. Each of the characters has a unique movement system that allows them to quickly cover short distances in the air.

Deadshot has a jetpack, but it has a limitation: it overheats, so you can’t fly across the map on a single charge. The advantage of the jetpack is that Deadshot can hover in the air, which diversifies the gameplay for this character.

King Shark is the only one of the four that can move quickly even without additional devices, as it can jump very high and far. By the way, this is one of the most convenient ways to get around, because King Shark can, among other things, speed up his run.

Captain Boomerang has a device that allows him to use the power of speed, the same as the Flash. This gives him the ability to teleport relatively long distances with his boomerang. In addition, it allows him to run at incredible speeds, but he needs to press the buttons in time.

But the most interesting character for me was Harley Quinn, who follows Batman’s path and steals the Dark Knight’s hook and drone from the Hall of Justice. This combo allows you to move around the city very quickly and dynamically and also hang in the air like Deadshot. And of course, it also brings back memories of playing as Batman in Batman: Arkham. Besides, it’s the only way I’ve ever been able to fly through a city without ever touching the ground.

In general, the movement in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is very well done. It changes significantly depending on the selected character and is not difficult to master. If you get used to the character’s movements and use this opportunity in time, the time to move from one location to another is significantly reduced and becomes much more fun.

Killing is fun!

The Metropolis is overrun with alien troops that must be exterminated by all possible means, and doing so is no less fun than flying over them.

Since the Suicide Squad consists of four assassins who do not have the same internal principles as Batman, the Suicide Squad’s response to an alien invasion is quite simple – kill everything that moves and does not look like a human (optional).

Each character has three weapon slots – one of which is used for melee combat. Characters have restrictions on what weapons are available to them. So, for example, a sniper rifle can be given to Deadshot and Boomerang, pistols to Deadshot and Harley, and shotguns to King Shark and Boomerang.

In addition, characters have other slots for upgrades, such as a movement module, shield, grenades, etc. All of these items increase damage and health and are obtained from enemies and for completing tasks. Of course, the best loot is waiting for us in the endgame of Suicide Sqaud: Kill the Justice League.

However, the best weapons are not really needed until the endgame. During the story campaign, the enemies don’t cause much inconvenience, but killing them is still a lot of fun. You can do it while sliding, in the air, with grenades, counterattacks, special abilities, and even with Harley’s big hammer. And the more you level up your character’s talent, the faster the destruction of the invaders takes place.

The aforementioned counterattack mechanic, as well as the need to break shields with melee attacks, also add variety to the combat system. The game also offers four weapon effects that also have their own unique features. Suicide Sqaud: Kill the Justice League encourages players to find their own style.

A good shooter component and dynamic movement make the gameplay really fun and exciting. You always find new opportunities to kill as many enemies as possible as quickly as possible and to do it in the most spectacular way. Even after 40 hours in the game, it still doesn’t get boring, and the higher difficulties that open up later make you become more inventive and attentive and better at pressing the buttons to avoid dying by accident.

End of game

As with any service game, the end of the story campaign in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is not the end of the game. After the last mission, new activities and an endless grind of better equipment and weapons open up to be ready for new variations of Brainiac from parallel worlds.

In the case of Suicide Squad, it’s traveling to Earth-2 to find the necessary resources or information about Brainiac. In Metropolis, there are several portals with different types of tasks that can be completed over and over again, each time on a higher difficulty to get a better reward. But there are two problems with them.

When the endgame is just beginning, it’s fun to complete these tasks. Cooler loot motivates you to complete missions again and again. For each passage, the Mystery parameter rises – the complexity of the tasks. And it’s really fun for the first few rounds. However, after a certain number of attempts, they start to get a little boring. And what can I say, if before completing these missions, you need to collect a certain amount of necessary resources by completing other tasks in Metropolis.

Metropolis itself also doesn’t have many different activities for the player after the end of the story, and this is the second problem. There are tasks from the assistants, but they are quite the same: rescue hostages, protect the terminal, kill all enemies, etc. And they are no different from the tasks that had to be performed to complete the story.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League also has the usual Batman: Arkham series’ usual Riddler puzzles, although there are not many of them here – only 74. For comparison, Batman: Arkham Knight has 243 such trophies. Although I have never collected all the trophies and completed all Riddler’s tasks in the Batman: Arkham games, it’s pretty easy and even a little fun. But not enough.

So, after the end of the main story, there are not too many activities in the game, and the focus shifts to the missions on Earth-2. After completing these missions on one difficulty, the second, third, and so on opens up. Everything has an impact on loot and is fun at first, but after Mystery 5 it starts to get boring. Although playing with friends improves the situation a bit, there is still not enough endgame content in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.

What’s next?

Rocksteady Games can fix the main drawback of the endgame and the game in general. The developers have already said that the first season will start in March 2024 and will include a new playable character – the Joker from Earth-2, more Riddler riddles, new additional activities, locations, boss battles, equipment and weapons, and more. And all this is free of charge. If future updates manage to diversify the endgame and make it less repetitive, then the game’s two main problems will disappear.

The parallel worlds presented in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League open up a large window of opportunity for Rocksteady Games. They can bring back Batman and the entire Justice League. They can make any locations they want. They can add the strangest weapons and activities. And, most importantly, all of this will organically fit into the plot thanks to traveling between worlds.

Suicide Squad

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League isn’t a bad game, as they’ve been trying to make it out to be for a long time. It has a good story campaign, which, although it sags towards the end, still remains interesting until the very end. The game has funny and silly characters that, despite this, demonstrate incredible synergy. Although the gameplay doesn’t offer anything radically new, it also turned out to be quite interesting and fun.

Aside from the server issues in the early access, which I didn’t experience personally, the game is well optimized and runs smoothly on the highest settings. I only encountered server issues once in 40 hours of play, both in solo and co-op.

Would Suicide Squad be better if it were a single-player game? Probably. Is it bad because it’s a service game? Absolutely not!

Despite the fact that the endgame is quite monotonous now, the company has the opportunity to fix it with future updates, which it is probably already doing. Despite all the negativity that has been thrown at Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League all this time, it has exceeded my expectations and I will definitely spend more than a dozen hours here.

Still, is it worth buying Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League at full price right now? That’s up to you to decide for yourself. I was looking forward to the game’s release and it lived up to my expectations, but I can’t say for sure that it’s worth 2,300 UAH and it might be better to wait for discounts or at least the first content updates.