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Warner Bros has decided to delay Rocksteady’s long in development co-op shooter Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, following a disastrous showing during a recent State of Play. Response to the demo was tepid at best, with the footage showing characters like Harley Quinn and Captain Boomerang floating around, shooting purple orbs. Despite some pretty high production values, the title did not show well.
While the release had been due out on 26th May, reliable Bloomberg [Paywall] scribe Jason Schreier claims that it’s been pushed back until later this year, although there’s no concrete word on when it will now launch.
Schreier added for context: “For what it's worth, a delay like this is mainly for polish, not to overhaul the core gameplay that caused the backlash. Suicide Squad started off as a Game as a Service and will remain one short of a complete reboot, which would require a much longer delay.”
Our immediate reaction is that a delay will not solve the game’s problems, as it was largely criticised for incorporating live service elements, gear scores, an online requirement even in single player, and what appeared to be some pretty unimaginative mission designs. None of these will be fixed in a few short months.
It should be noted that this isn’t Suicide Squad’s first delay: it was originally due out in 2022, and developer Rocksteady has been working on this for the best part of a decade, following Batman: Arkham Knight’s release in 2015.
[source bloomberg.com, via twitter.com]
Comments 73
Now that is a shame and I'll just have to not buy it later this year instead.
Genuine question, why delay it? It's not like they can fundamentally change the game in a few months and if Spider-Man does come out later this year, I'm not sure this should be anywhere near it
Saw this coming a mile away. They may get rid of the battle pass and always online stuff but as the article says they cant exactly change the gameplay loop at this point without a full restart
@carlos82 Yeah I'd like to know why they've delayed it too. As you rightly point out, they can't really change many of the game's fundamental features in a few months.
Might as well just bin the whole thing.
Jesus, just release it. Don't try and fix this into a half baked live service game shifted away last minute like gotham knights.
You made that bed, lay in it. You aren't fixing a generic live service third person shooter foundation in a few months. I wonder if this shift is more based on corporate financial calendars knowing its going to under perform.
I have no hope for this game after showing us thay demo. The gameplay is just shooting big purple warts on a turrets or uninteresting looking enemies with BARELY any melee combat. How is that possible from ROCKSTEADY?
Not really surprised it looked absolutely terrible plus not many are keen on live service games, just look at how badly the avengers did ; also comparing how well the arkham games did non-live aervice . I'm pretty sick of destiny as a live service tbh I'll probably be stop playing after the current expansion and I've been playing since 2013. Gamers are wiseing up , we are clear these are massive cash grabs. Open for people to change my opinion though
I mean good on them for listening to the feedback. But yeah. A delay can't fix what has already been done, and zero chance of re-building the game that fast.
@KundaliniRising333 It could be. Or maybe they feel they need to rethink the marketing strategy.
I'm pretty confident that Rocksteady haven't been working on it for nearly a decade.
In all likelihood they probably had a game that was cancelled (rumoured to be a Superman game).
Rocksteady are a very competent developer who turned around three Batman games in 8 years as well as a short VR game, so something must have happened during that time.
end up f2p? try to recoup costs quickly then it can die?
or holiday season in the hope of parents buying it?
This is the one game that I think won't benefit from any kind of delay, it's problems are baked deep into the game. Just release it as is and move on to something else, hopefully something that might actually get people excited 🤷
@get2sammyb yeah I was thinking that too, and also perhaps putting a larger chunk of time between that terrible showcase and release, to sugar coat with that better marketing.
I just want it to be stated on record its gonna be funny if this drops and gotham knights is the better received of these two.
I have the feeling the investment in more development time is a waist of money. This game was DOA from the start.
As the article suggests, the delay is most likely for polish.
If it were anything to do with the reception of the trailer, the game would get outright cancelled.
Assuming this will inevitably result in delay after delay before eventual cancellation all together then. Literally no point in a small delay. Needs a complete overhaul or cancellation.
Same result on reveal as Halo Infinite.
Tbh if Rocksteady had spoke about their idea for the game it would have been perfectly fine, but to showcase what they did to people who wanted an Arkham like experience, its a slap in the face.
Pointless delay though. Unless they’re getting rid of the battle pass and you get everything up front.
They can polish that turd, they could even plate it in gold and polish it some more, but it will still be a turd at its core.
I do wonder what they think they can do to salvage it.
I am not sure if polish will help - at least not for me.
Once I saw that it was just basically another online shooter RPG (e.g. Destiny), I lost interest.
Given how bad the reception was, they should just toss it out into the wild and see if it lives or dies. It’s going to have a contentious release regardless.
Yeah. This game is DOA.
They should make it a permanent one... Idk what they could do to save the game tbh. Change the ip to something that actually relates to the game they've made?
If they have to salvage it they could just give it a generic skin and let it die like every other PvE live service game not called Destiny.
This will be a hard cut for Rocksteady… oh my
@get2sammyb "Yeah I'd like to know why they've delayed it too." "Or maybe they feel they need to rethink the marketing strategy."
They delayed it to release it alongside Spiderman 2 so when it flops the marketing strategy will be to blame it on Sony spending all of their Playstation ad budget and time on Spiderman 2.
Sorry not sorry.
So when do we hear ANYTHING about HFW: Burning Shores, it supposedly releases 6 weeks from yesterday. 🤷♂️
Oh yeah, these beloved Live Service Games. That‘s what Jimbo decided for us as a main part of PlayStation‘s future first party games.
Xbox don’t need to buy ABK, they just have to not follow SIE to win on the long run.
So much Rocksteady could have done in their Arkhamverse. This just isn’t it. With Batman being such a hot topic at the moment surely this has to be a massive misstep? With Gotham Knights killing him off and this nonsense, it’ll be years before we get anything with Batman as the main playable character. Such a shame
The extra time they spend on it is just throwing money away. Accept the sunk cost and move on
The game was coming in close to Zelda, Diablo 4, Street Fighter 6 and FF16, maybe delaying it to later in the year will allow them to set a date to a less crowded period and maybe sell a few more copies than it should at this point.
Look at the games that surround this heap of junk, it was never gonna be a good game anyway but to be in around whoppers like ff16, diablo 4, Street fighter, it hasn't got a chance, it will come at some point DOA cancelled service after a year max something similar to that failure Anthem.
Poor kev, being associated with this crap as his last batman portrayal.
This is like the meme with the baby covered in *****. You gotta throw the whole baby out at this point.
@AdamNovice Yeah. As I’m pretty confident that this was originally the Suicide Squad game that WB Games Montreal was working before it was “canned”.
A delay won't fix the issues we all had. Lack of polish wasn't actually an issue with the footage shown
@Athrum Watch them move the date to September so it can compete with Starfield and possibly Spider-Man 2.
I didn't get it. Captain Boomerang and Croc are using guns (!) for some reason like they can stop The Flash with simple guns...
@Grimwood Dude the demo had Captain Boomerang speeding around like a Flash shooting people with shotguns, red flags right there.
Let's see its a 3rd person loot based shooter a very tired genre, it has a battle pass, gear scores, MTX shop, roadmaps, its always online and has its 4 characters all playing exactly the same shooting big purple glowing orbs. Its like they saw Avengers and decided to make a poor mans version of it.
This was originally peaked by Jez Cordon. Schreier reposted it because that's what he does.
They’d need to overhaul this completely to fix it.
@somnambulance agreed. Let the market decide
Maybe I’m just savvy on the topic, but why do people get up in arms about a game requiring internet connection? Nearly everyone is constantly connected one way or another any how.
Seriously WB, option A: cut your losses, just don't release it at all, since that's what you also did with the Batgirl movie, which couldn't have been that bad, considering a world where Leto Joker suicide squad exists. Option B: sink no more money in advertising, release it on psplus/game pass and digital only (the plastic wasted on this for bargain bins would be a shame), and let the game walk the way of most all game services, with bowed head into inevitable obscurity.
Good,it looked garbage.
really sucks that i always gotta wait til the fall season to play games i actually give a ***** about
aside from SF6 , is this spring/summer gonna be another season of indies ?
@johnny30 quick question , is the borderlands games live service to you ?
Yea this delay isn't going to fix the lifeless GaaS elements. I think Sony is in for a rude awakening once they start announcing their 10.
@icarusdreams it’s not about the connection requirement that most are upset about because, as you said, we are almost always connected anyway. It’s about the necessity to be connected to the server. It’s really bad for game preservation. Plus how do you think you would feel if you payed full price for a game, and let’s say the game flopped hard and the studio went under 6 months after release and servers shut down. It’s really just not good for games with full solo campaigns to be restricted to requiring a constant online connection.
I doubt the delay has anything to do with the poor reception after the showcase. It's probably just not ready yet. I don't think a good reception would have changed this outcome.
@nomither6 I'd say no ; just a game with an expansion pass though the last borderlands had two season passes , same for last assassins creed
@Darthmoogle tbh majority of games are like that to some degree, e.g games that autosave have saves stored on the server, its more prevalent on pc but the majority of games has some aspect on a server , these days there's very little difference between physical and digital and gap is getting smaller every gen, soon enough disks won't exist anymore just the cloud
I'm sorry for the devs who have been forced to make this travesty but I really hope it fails and badly!Hopefully this will send a message to publishers(are you listening Sony)that when you've got one of the best franchises in gaming think twice about its direction
I could see them starting work on an offline mode, but yea, there is no way they will address any of the main issues without a way longer delay.
@johnny30
Final Fantasy XIV is, IMO the best service game out there. Playing it from start to finish, its the longest and most immersive Final Fantasy story arc ever, can be played almost entirely solo (with scripted AI companions,) and you never are time pressed out of FOMO to complete some ridiculous season pass grinding.
Mind you, there can be some grinding if you are done with the story and just want to achieve the strongest super boss content, but its optional and one can easily complete all story content, cancel the subscription, and come back later when enough story content has been released to enjoy another month of awesome story content, maybe never bother with those super boss encounters.
@Tharsman I wouldn't really consider ffXIV live service as there expansions are massive , plus vendors and loads of quests , I've played most of it just not done shadowbringers expansion . I got sick of the minority toxic players that chuck me from the dungeon if I've never done it before or using the right skills. I will get back to it at some point but so many games out the now. I just mean terrible live service like destiny -, the end game content hasnt changed from 2013 , constantly repeat the same 4/5 tasks every week over and over , ffxiv has so much content and no vaulting content and vendors don't update their equipment
@johnny30 by modern definitions, its a live service game, and what you describe is what makes it one of the best service games out there.
You seem to have stopped just as they started introducing a fix to your issue, starting with Shadowbringers, and continuing with Endwalker, they added NPCs you can run the dungeons with, no need to bring anyone along and you can take all the time you want appreciating the dungeon design and the small details added by the devs.
I have not played in quite a while now, but they started going through all old story dungeons to add that NPC aid system. Their plan is slowly phased so will take them a while to add it to all story dungeons, but it's headed that way. I usually go back every time they release an expansion, and take my time playing through the story, then only come back when the next expansion is coming near, and the current expansion extra story content is all out.
How the heck rocksteady goes from batman arkham series to squareenix avenger knockoff like this 😕
Long as it's a Games as a Service Online only/always, I have zero interest. You can delay it to Kingdom Come and it won't polish this turd a bit.
@johnny30 In 6+ years I think I met one genuinely Toxic/elitist player in FF. It has one of the most tolerant and patient communities for an MMO. WoW, by comparison, is vastly the opposite. Even if Dragonflight is decent. The community is not.
What's there to delay? There is no saving this train wreck. Cancel it. Repurpose the assets for a single player justice league game.
@Krysus I guess I've just been unlucky then I was constantly getting kicked from parties because I got complained I didn't know what I was doing as first time doing dungeons or got accused of being a bot and kicked because I went away for 1 min to grab something to eat etc
Originally liked the look of this, the preview put me off. I’ll wait till it’s on PS+ or Game Pass.
I do wonder which will release first Skull and Bones or Suicide Squad. They both sadly feel like inevitable flops waiting to happen. I'd like to believe this delay could improve things but like others have said the problems present can't really be fixed without a complete overhaul.
Just a sad situation all around really.
We got a Gotham Knights scenario incoming ...last minute changes to try and remove the live service game ...and we are left with what is an obvious live service game without the live service elements.....this annoys me because I have been waiting for Rocksteady next game for ages .....now we end up with this ...disappointing ..should have stuck to story driven
There's still a huge DC fan base that buys or watches anything they churn out maybe they want to use this turd to see how that demographic will spend. They know its a turd but at least they want to make it the shiniest turd possible.
@johnny30 there's some simple etiquette in dungeons, especially FF, that everyone appreciates. If it's your first time, just say so as the dungeon is starting. And uhhh, I wouldn't recommend leaving in the middle of a dungeon to grab a bite. Dungeons are usually about 20-30 minutes max as is. But that is generally accepted as rude behavior and will get you kicked. FF is a far more laid back community, but still, respect the other 3 people's time in the dungeon.
@johnny30 they hooked you for 10 years making you pay and play, So it is not far fetched they have the numbers the prove they can hook a number of players on the game loop and be profitable for a few years.
I hope you don't get my comment the wrong way, but it is clear there is a target players for this type of games.
I am genuinely curious if you don't mind, how you not get bored of playing a game for almost 10 years even if you played on/off?
@Dr-M was mostly on and off as tend to jump off for new games, because kind like a bad girlfriend that you keep hoping thry would change but never so and offer the exact same end game stuff. So I'm out of chances with bungie 😂😂😂
@KundaliniRising333 With long development cycles and the money studios use to finance these projects, they can’t afford bad press. The irony is the lack of personality and streamlining the game to “popular tastes” is why they had the bad reception to begin with. 😮
I never see a game like this.a real CRAP! I dont know who pay for do this garbage. Im talking in a way that the devs understand.
Dont release this! Its a waste of money! Where is the good and awesome well done batman games? Shame on you devs. CRAP!! I what you have!
@nookie_egg Do you think Kevin knew the direction Rocksteady was going with the game? When he was recording his lines...
@KidBoruto from what I read about his work on Arkham games he had no clue what was going on during the whole process, and can't imagine he'd know too much about the whole "game as a service" thing. Presumably based on the feedback he'd have had from previous work, he would assume he would be giving the fans more of what they wanted. Hope it doesn't ruin the legacy too much.
A couple month delay can't fix the fundamental way you have designed this game Rocksteady you made your crappy bed now lie in it
@nookie_egg At the very least the story and cutscenes are decent....just a shame the gameplay is so backwards.
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