Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is Rocksteady’s latest game after the studio released Batman: Arkham Knight in 2015. Many fans have shared their opinions on the title. Previously, similar conversations were sparked when Gotham Knights was announced, and trailers were released for it, despite the title not being part of the same universe.
Knights was criticized for its performance issues more than anything, but with time, it was rendered playable on both consoles and PCs. Despite receiving a lot of flak and mixed reviews, it still has its moments and knocks Rocksteady’s latest out of the park. These are four reasons why.
4. The Characters Don’t Feel Distinct in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League
Like Gotham Knights, Kill the Justice League has four playable characters. Each of them is supposed to feel different, and they do in some areas. But the fact that there’s a lot of overlap between all four, apart from their melee and traversal abilities, is something that feels off in a superhero title.
Gotham Knights also had different traversal mechanics and a shared one, the Batcycle. But the Knighthood traversal mechanic added a fun twist to the title. Also, the combat felt very custom for every character. One could differentiate Nightwing from Redhood and Batgirl from Robin easily. They had different combos, strengths, melee weapons, special attacks, and everything.
On the other hand, Suicide Squad feels much more fluid, but there isn’t a lot of nuance in combat because you are using guns, regardless of the character. The type of gun varies with characters, but that is about it.
3. The Plot of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Kills the Franchise Instead
Going into Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, the plot was made pretty evident by the title itself and various early promotional material that talked about how Brainiac took control of all the members of the Justice League and Task Force X was sent to save the world.
Now, without giving any significant spoilers, the game’s ending feels lackluster, and since it is a live-service game, it will rely on further content to make things interesting. The whole multiverse and the 13 Brainiacs approach the game went for ultimately feel incomplete. While it offers some content to be explored after the endgame, the writing feels incomplete compared to Knights.
The latter has various writing issues, but everything in it, from Batman’s death in the prologue to the second boss fight against Bruce Wayne and defeating the Court of Owls, feels cohesive and canon.
2. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Feels Even More Like a Spinoff Than Gotham Knights
Knights wasn’t in the Arkhamverse; it was made abundantly clear when it was announced. However, Rocksteady’s latest is set in the same universe as the Batman: Arkham games. However, it seems that it is only said to be set in the timeline so that it could capitalize on the Arkham trilogy’s popularity; it feels nothing like it. If anything, it feels like a whole new franchise, which is vastly different. It feels like a total reinvention.
Not only is the Arkhamverse now empty without Batman, but it seems even more chaotic that not just one Brainiac but 12 others have been brought into the picture. This means that even if a ton of new content is thrown at the player, the end goal will be to stop Brainiac. It feels random, unpolished, and something that would have made sense in a timeline or a universe that wasn’t canon.
On the other hand, Knights had stealth elements, melee combat, takedowns, investigations, and better boss fights. Even the plot was more coherent and made more sense than Suicide Squad‘s. It had more in common with the Arkhamverse than a game that is part of the Arkhamverse.
1. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Struggles to Find Its Identity
As stated earlier, looking at the gameplay or, better yet, playing through Kill the Justice League is enough to understand that it was meant to be played in co-op. One can complete it solo without much hassle, but the gameplay isn’t why one would play a superhero game.
The blend of third-person shooting, crafting, RPG mechanics, looting, and live service makes it look nothing like a superhero game. It seems lost and doesn’t feel authentic. It feels like it took creative inspiration from games loosely focused on narrative and more on co-op and live service. It feels like a love child of Fortnite, Sunset Overdrive, with a narrative only added to make it feel like a superhero game.
Overall, it feels like the studio tried to create something new but could only create something uninspiring and bland.
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