Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Is a Litmus Test for Live-Service Games

ign.com:

Rocksteady Studios is an insanely talented game developer. If they didn’t single-handedly prove that you could make an amazing AAA superhero video game, they sure as hell get the lion’s share of the credit thanks to the deservedly beloved Batman: Arkham trilogy. But they left Batman behind after 2015’s Arkham Knight, and…we haven’t heard from them since (hat tip to the fun little 90-minute Batman: Arkham VR experience that launched alongside the PSVR1 in 2016). Eventually, we got the official word as to what the studio was doing next: Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, a four-player co-op live-service third-person shooter.

Individually, none of those descriptors make my skin crawl, but together? Yikes. And unfortunately, after last week’s extended Suicide Squad gameplay showcase at the Sony State of Play (yeah, I know, this is an Xbox column, but it’s an Xbox game too so just roll with me here), those adjectives all describe Kill the Justice League, a game in which the primary objective of the game appears to be <checks notes> “shoot and/or punch anything purple.” Oh, and it’s also got a Battle Pass and it requires an online connection at all times, even if you’re playing solo.

Let me get my disappointment out of the way here before I get to my point. Rocksteady’s Batman Arkham trilogy didn’t just raise the bar for superhero games. They were each also valid Game of the Year contenders (and in some cases winners) in and of themselves. This studio has set an extremely high standard. The Arkham trio had top-shelf stealth gameplay, detective work, free-flowing melee combat that was so good that other games straight-up ripped it off, moody art direction that made Gotham City as much of a character as Batman or The Joker,