The 10 Best And Worst Things About Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League
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VOICE OVER: Ty Richardson
WRITTEN BY: Caitlin Johnson
"Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League" is definitely a mixed bag. Welcome to MojoPlays, and today we're looking at the pros and cons of Rocksteady's latest, superhero outing. Our list includes positive features like the game's performance and its characters, as well as negative features like the boss fights and its Battle Pass.
Script written by Caitlin Johnson
Welcome to MojoPlays, and today we’re looking at the pros and cons of Rocksteady’s latest, superhero outing.
Credit where credit is due, Rocksteady quickly started working on fixes for this after screenshots emerged a few weeks before launch. The ailing game was faced with yet more pre-release criticism when people got a look at the extremely busy UI. UIs like this have definitely started to fall out of fashion with the release of games like “Elden Ring”, which proves that less really is more, even in the world of video games. Thankfully, Rocksteady took all that criticism on board, and the game has highly customizable HUD options so that you can see as much or as little as you like.
When “Gotham Knights” released back in 2022, its performance received the bulk of the criticism. Even over a year on and after many patches, “Gotham Knights” still only runs at 30fps on PS5 and Xbox Series X. So, it was nice to see “Suicide Squad” avoid this issue, with Rocksteady announcing that it was going to target 60fps on ninth gen consoles. This, at least, is a breath of fresh air when developers still seem to be struggling to eke out performance on consoles. It also appears to be well-optimized for PC – at least, in comparison to “Arkham Knight’s” infamously bad PC port.
“Arkham Asylum” brought us one of the greatest, most enduring combat systems in any third-person action game. That’s what makes the combat in “Suicide Squad” even harder to swallow than it would have been coming from another studio. It’s bogged down in the RPG-lite nonsense we’ve been seeing in games for years. Despite “Gotham Knights” also getting a poor reception for having damage modifiers, weapon upgrade systems, and XP, it looks like Warner Bros. hasn’t learned. The fact that a lot of the game is spent taking down swarms of generic Brainiac enemies is also painfully disappointing – as is the lack of variety between the different characters.
The moment-to-moment combat isn’t great, and unfortunately, neither are the boss fights. Rocksteady isn’t exactly known for its boss fights; yes, we all loved the Mr Freeze fight in “Arkham City”, but when it comes to more traditional boss fights and arenas, they were some of the weakest parts of the “Arkham” trilogy – all those tank battles, for instance. Sadly, the trend hasn’t been bucked here. The Flash, Green Lantern, and Superman bosses just see you chasing them quickly around a large arena ad nauesum. Batman is a little more interesting since we see him use the fear toxin, but it ends up being a fight against a static, nightmare Batman in one room. In a game all about killing the Justice League, killing the Justice League isn’t all that fun.
Where Insomniac’s “Spider-Man” games borrowed heavily from “Arkham”, “Suicide Squad” is taking a few lessons from the web-slinger in turn. Fun traversal is now an integral part of a superhero game, and “Suicide Squad” gives us four unique traversal options for its characters. Now, they definitely don’t reach the lofty heights of “Spider-Man”, but when you compare it to its nearest competitor, “Gotham Knights”, the difference is clear. Simply put, you’ve got a lot of options for how to get around the world, and you don’t have to complete long challenges to unlock a character’s unique traversal, like you did in “Gotham Knights”.
Yes, the game supports four-player co-op, but if you want to play it solo, you’ve got the option. However, even playing solo, “Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League” requires a constant, online connection. It’s never a good sign when a game does this, and it’s deeply exclusionary to anyone who has poor or unreliable internet. It also led to the game being taken offline the day it went live because it had a huge bug: players logging in for the first time had already finished the story on their save file – which, obviously, they hadn’t. While the game was down, nobody who’d bought it could play it, because there was no way to play offline. It’s now being said that eventually, it WILL get an offline story mode, but not yet.
Speaking of the people who couldn’t play the game while it was down, those were all the players who’d coughed up to play it early. This was being touted as “early access” – as if it’s a Steam release still being worked on, rather than a cheap way to get some extra cash for Warner Bros. and trick people into pre-ordering. Worse than that, though, the game has a battle pass and seasons, despite being single-player. Through this battle pass, you can unlock cosmetics, and new seasons will introduce things like “episodes” themed around different villains, new weapons, and boss variants. The silver lining is that the seasons aren’t limited time; though more will keep being added, you can always go back and keep playing the older ones.
While the quality of the main plot has left a LOT to be desired after seeing the deaths of many major characters, it’s not all bad on the writing front. The writing for individual characters is very consistent with what we know from the comics and James Gunn’s latest movie about Task Force X. The four leads bounce off each other well, even if Captain Boomerang will seriously test your patience, and also work against Waller and the members of the Justice League. Wonder Woman, too, is great to see every time she shows up. It’s just a shame the bigger story beats and some of the side characters let the game down.
Also included in the battle pass are at least four characters for the first four seasons it’s going to cover. We know the first character is the Joker, and that the Suicide Squad’s romp through the DC multiverse is going to explain how he’s able to show up, having died back in “Arkham City”. This also explains those boss variants and shows how a season pass can work in a single-player game, as the new content is all explained away as being part of the Elseworlds format. But paying for extra characters in a game like this is a tough pill to swallow. It may work for fighting games, but it definitely shouldn’t be a thing in an ARPG, even if it IS co-op.
This one is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the late and great Kevin Conroy gives a phenomenal performance as the Dark Knight. But on the other, a lot of fans are understandably up in arms about how the Caped Crusader meets his end. As well as Batman’s death, the Bat Family are also killed off-screen. But we get to hear Conroy again, and we finally have our answers about “Arkham Knight’s” post-credits scene, where the Batman returns using the fear toxin. He also uses some of his “Arkham” gadgets against you, sneaking around and laying traps. But perhaps Batman should have stayed dead after his “Arkham Knight” send-off, or remained unaffected by Brainiac.
Let us know what you think about “Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League”. Do you like it, or do you think Rocksteady has gone off the rails?
Welcome to MojoPlays, and today we’re looking at the pros and cons of Rocksteady’s latest, superhero outing.
Worst: Heads-Up Display
Credit where credit is due, Rocksteady quickly started working on fixes for this after screenshots emerged a few weeks before launch. The ailing game was faced with yet more pre-release criticism when people got a look at the extremely busy UI. UIs like this have definitely started to fall out of fashion with the release of games like “Elden Ring”, which proves that less really is more, even in the world of video games. Thankfully, Rocksteady took all that criticism on board, and the game has highly customizable HUD options so that you can see as much or as little as you like.
Best: Performance
When “Gotham Knights” released back in 2022, its performance received the bulk of the criticism. Even over a year on and after many patches, “Gotham Knights” still only runs at 30fps on PS5 and Xbox Series X. So, it was nice to see “Suicide Squad” avoid this issue, with Rocksteady announcing that it was going to target 60fps on ninth gen consoles. This, at least, is a breath of fresh air when developers still seem to be struggling to eke out performance on consoles. It also appears to be well-optimized for PC – at least, in comparison to “Arkham Knight’s” infamously bad PC port.
Worst: Combat
“Arkham Asylum” brought us one of the greatest, most enduring combat systems in any third-person action game. That’s what makes the combat in “Suicide Squad” even harder to swallow than it would have been coming from another studio. It’s bogged down in the RPG-lite nonsense we’ve been seeing in games for years. Despite “Gotham Knights” also getting a poor reception for having damage modifiers, weapon upgrade systems, and XP, it looks like Warner Bros. hasn’t learned. The fact that a lot of the game is spent taking down swarms of generic Brainiac enemies is also painfully disappointing – as is the lack of variety between the different characters.
Worst: Boss Fights
The moment-to-moment combat isn’t great, and unfortunately, neither are the boss fights. Rocksteady isn’t exactly known for its boss fights; yes, we all loved the Mr Freeze fight in “Arkham City”, but when it comes to more traditional boss fights and arenas, they were some of the weakest parts of the “Arkham” trilogy – all those tank battles, for instance. Sadly, the trend hasn’t been bucked here. The Flash, Green Lantern, and Superman bosses just see you chasing them quickly around a large arena ad nauesum. Batman is a little more interesting since we see him use the fear toxin, but it ends up being a fight against a static, nightmare Batman in one room. In a game all about killing the Justice League, killing the Justice League isn’t all that fun.
Best: Traversal
Where Insomniac’s “Spider-Man” games borrowed heavily from “Arkham”, “Suicide Squad” is taking a few lessons from the web-slinger in turn. Fun traversal is now an integral part of a superhero game, and “Suicide Squad” gives us four unique traversal options for its characters. Now, they definitely don’t reach the lofty heights of “Spider-Man”, but when you compare it to its nearest competitor, “Gotham Knights”, the difference is clear. Simply put, you’ve got a lot of options for how to get around the world, and you don’t have to complete long challenges to unlock a character’s unique traversal, like you did in “Gotham Knights”.
Worst: Always Online
Yes, the game supports four-player co-op, but if you want to play it solo, you’ve got the option. However, even playing solo, “Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League” requires a constant, online connection. It’s never a good sign when a game does this, and it’s deeply exclusionary to anyone who has poor or unreliable internet. It also led to the game being taken offline the day it went live because it had a huge bug: players logging in for the first time had already finished the story on their save file – which, obviously, they hadn’t. While the game was down, nobody who’d bought it could play it, because there was no way to play offline. It’s now being said that eventually, it WILL get an offline story mode, but not yet.
Worst: Battle Pass
Speaking of the people who couldn’t play the game while it was down, those were all the players who’d coughed up to play it early. This was being touted as “early access” – as if it’s a Steam release still being worked on, rather than a cheap way to get some extra cash for Warner Bros. and trick people into pre-ordering. Worse than that, though, the game has a battle pass and seasons, despite being single-player. Through this battle pass, you can unlock cosmetics, and new seasons will introduce things like “episodes” themed around different villains, new weapons, and boss variants. The silver lining is that the seasons aren’t limited time; though more will keep being added, you can always go back and keep playing the older ones.
Best: The Characters
While the quality of the main plot has left a LOT to be desired after seeing the deaths of many major characters, it’s not all bad on the writing front. The writing for individual characters is very consistent with what we know from the comics and James Gunn’s latest movie about Task Force X. The four leads bounce off each other well, even if Captain Boomerang will seriously test your patience, and also work against Waller and the members of the Justice League. Wonder Woman, too, is great to see every time she shows up. It’s just a shame the bigger story beats and some of the side characters let the game down.
Worst: The EXTRA Characters
Also included in the battle pass are at least four characters for the first four seasons it’s going to cover. We know the first character is the Joker, and that the Suicide Squad’s romp through the DC multiverse is going to explain how he’s able to show up, having died back in “Arkham City”. This also explains those boss variants and shows how a season pass can work in a single-player game, as the new content is all explained away as being part of the Elseworlds format. But paying for extra characters in a game like this is a tough pill to swallow. It may work for fighting games, but it definitely shouldn’t be a thing in an ARPG, even if it IS co-op.
Best: Kevin Conroy
This one is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the late and great Kevin Conroy gives a phenomenal performance as the Dark Knight. But on the other, a lot of fans are understandably up in arms about how the Caped Crusader meets his end. As well as Batman’s death, the Bat Family are also killed off-screen. But we get to hear Conroy again, and we finally have our answers about “Arkham Knight’s” post-credits scene, where the Batman returns using the fear toxin. He also uses some of his “Arkham” gadgets against you, sneaking around and laying traps. But perhaps Batman should have stayed dead after his “Arkham Knight” send-off, or remained unaffected by Brainiac.
Let us know what you think about “Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League”. Do you like it, or do you think Rocksteady has gone off the rails?
