Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League — hands-on with co-op and Flash boss battle

blog.playstation.com:

In the new year, Rocksteady returns with a fresh addition to the beloved Arkhamverse with Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, a third-person action shooter launching February 2 on PS5.

I recently had a chance to play the game, including a basic tutorial on each character’s traversal and combat, co-op missions, and a climactic boss battle against The Fastest Man Alive. Let’s dive into the hijinks these antiheroes have up their sleeves.

The hands-on experience began with tutorials to introduce each character’s specific traversal and combat mechanics. Through these lessons, I gained a grasp on how each character’s movement uniquely influences their combat abilities.

“It’s not traversal and combat,” says Rocksteady Advanced Combat Designer Noel Chamberlain. “They’re both really intertwined…everything is seamless.”

For example, King Shark’s athletic traversal and combat are intuitive. His Apex Pounce, a traversal mechanic that launches the big fish into the sky, is a simple way to get moving. Once in the air, he can swim through the clouds to gain speed, setting himself up for a dive bomb landing to viciously melee attack foes via combat knives.

Harley Quinn and Deadshot’s movement mechanics are very different from each other but share similarities in that gaining speed while traversing heavily relies on sliding. This nimble slide is useful while waiting on the cooldowns for Harley’s Grapnel Gun (thanks Batman) and Deadshot’s jetpack.

“The movement is a huge part of the skill in this game, and we built it to have complexity very deliberately so players can get better and learn the intricacies over time,” says Rocksteady Production Manager Jack Hackett.

Perfecting the slide timing to keep momentum once on the ground can be