Few superhero video
game adaptations
have reached the soaring heights achieved by
Rocksteady Studios
' acclaimed
Batman: Arkham trilogy
. Launching nine years after the genre-defining Arkham Knight swooped its last brooding flight over Gotham's Gothic rooftops,
Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League
ambitiously attempts to propel DC's iconoclastic band of supervillain misfits to equally lofty levels of triumph.
In a sea of disappointing live service games that struggle to retain players and fulfill lofty promises, Rocksteady's
Suicide Squad
: Kill the Justice League emerges with an unexpected spark of character that briefly masks its glaring identity issues before it drags it back down to familiar lows. After hours of trying to juggle through this suicidal mission, this is what we loved and hated about Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League.
Plot, Storyline, and Characters
Our tale begins as the Skull-Ship of intergalactic collector Brainiac bottlenecks Earth's defences to unleash a full-scale takeover. In mere hours, Controlled Justice League titans under his mental spell begin decimating the planet's major cities, starting with Metropolis. Enter the Wall, Amanda Waller, who initiates the Suicide Squad failsafe by nano-bombing the spines of Earth's most dangerous prisoners and conscripts,
Deadshot
,
Harley Quinn
, Captain Boomerang, and the uncontrollable King Shark in the unusual role of very reluctant (and very squishy) heroes.
Their impossible mission? Infiltrate the occupied city without getting brain-drained and find a way to free Superman, Batman, and the League from alien control. The catch? Waller will blow their heads clean off if they dare disobey orders or try escaping her remote oversight.
Deadshot, Harley Quinn, King Shark, and Captain Boomerang
The writing delivers exactly the brand of madcap, irreverent humour you'd expect from a story dedicated to violent supervillains going toe-to-toe with the planet's most powerful heroes. Sprinkled among cinematics worthy of a high-budget animated film are plenty of quippy one-liners, creatively gory combat, and unexpected moments of camaraderie between Squad members who would just as soon betray each other.
By the end, the plot ties itself up in an overly tidy bow that undermines earlier relationship dynamics in favour of a brighter future that isn't totally convincing. However, the rollercoaster ride to get there is plenty of entertainment, thanks to outstanding performances, dialog, and characterizations. The Suicide Squad shines brightest here, while the Justice League are largely one-note brainwashed bad guys.
Gameplay
Past the opening hours, the mission structure quickly falls into repetitive open-world trappings like clearing identical enemy camps or chasing MacGuffins around the city. Tedium often outweighs strategy, especially on harder difficulties when spongy foes soak up clips of ammo. AI squadmates can miraculously revive you from across the map but struggle with basic tactics like using cover or avoiding AoEs.
Thanks to Rocksteady's trademark gritty, hard-hitting combat animations and effects, most abilities, weapons and gear feel great. Still, there's little incentive to experiment when stacking damage and crit stats via increasingly boring loot is far more efficient. Even iconic gear sets like Harley Quinn's jester costume or Deadshot's wrist magnums get outpaced by random number generators, sapping away ceremony from what should feel like momentous hero progression.
Everything from traversal to moment-to-moment gunplay feels wonderfully responsive and impactful thanks to Rocksteady's trademark attention to hard-hitting effects and snappy camerawork. The game shines brightest in campaign moments, and boss battles featuring cinematic set-pieces break up the repetitive slaughter or when squad members banter mid-mission to underline relationships in more serious cutscenes. But outside heavily scripted events, Suicide Squad leans too hard into its repetitive loot grind and arena battles to let its great characters breathe.
Legendary gear sets and iconic weapons like Deadshot’s wrist-mounted arsenal or Harley’s comically oversized mallet provide temporary delight until random loot predictably outpaces their usefulness. After all, why invest emotional attachment in meticulous crafted hero customization when arbitrarily generated loot can replace hours of playtime in seconds?
Much like Suicide Squad members forced into mandatory heroism against their true nature as agents of joyful chaos, Rocksteady's open world conventions restrain their irreverent creations from reaching their narrative potential. What should have been a gleefully unhinged villain-based palate cleanser from tired superhero stories ends up thematically indistinguishable from countless other live service grinds. Amanda Waller may as well have microchipped the players themselves into a repetitive loop of meaningless progression for all the wasted opportunities on display.
Verdict
You'd be hard-pressed to invent a zanier premise for a comic book game than a group of incarcerated DC villains forced against their will to save the world from an alien invasion and corrupted Justice League. A cruel government spymaster transforming nefarious agents of chaos like Harley Quinn, Deadshot, and King Shark into extremely reluctant heroes already writes itself. The possibilities for irreverent humour, over-the-top action, and surprise camaraderie between backstabbing rogues seem boundless.
Yet somehow, the mad geniuses at Rocksteady have achieved the impossible: a game starring some of DC's most colourful oddballs feels drained of life and personality.
For all its witty charm and standout moments, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League never escapes the distinct feeling that the open-world looter shooter format does Rocksteady's brilliant vision few favors. An obsession with uninspired gear scores and ability builds mutes the excellent character writing, while mission structure rarely rises above the blandest Ubisoft formulas.
Diehard DC fans will have plenty of fun thanks to an irreverent campaign story and familiar playable rogues gallery. Still, as a complete package, Suicide Squad's best qualities make its mismatched genre trappings glaring. This offbeat comic book darling deserved better than loot treadmills and repetitive open worlds, but its oddball cast manages to inject just enough life into the tired formula.
English (US) ·