Rocksteady Games, the rockstar developer behind the Batman: Arkham franchise, has apparently been enlisted to work on a Director’s Cut version of Hogwarts Legacy following the $200 million flop of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. The London-based studio, once one of the biggest names in gaming, is apparently helping on the Harry Potter spin-off while it works on pitching a new single player project.
The speculation comes courtesy of a sprawling Bloomberg expose, in which the flaws of February’s superhero outing are laid bare. It sounds like Suicide Squad was doomed from the start, as a constantly shifting vision meant Rocksteady was fighting fires throughout the title’s entire seven-year development cycle. Warner Bros, the game’s publisher, was convinced live service was the way to go – but the studio, famous for its solo campaigns, simply didn’t have the knowhow to execute on the idea. To make matters worse, all of the team’s in-house talent was renowned for melee combat, but it suddenly found itself working on a third-person shooter.
While new content is still being released for Kill the Justice League, it sounds like the majority of Rocksteady’s workforce has shifted to supporting the aforementioned Director’s Cut of Hogwarts Legacy. It’s unclear what this will actually entail: is it an expanded re-release? A DLC? Or something else entirely? We’ll try and press for answers, but it’s no surprise Warner Bros is doubling down on the series, seeing as it was one of the biggest hits of 2023.
[source bloomberg.com]
Comments 41
What would a director cut even be ?
I'm quite curious too as what a Directo's Cut of Hogwarts Legacy will bring.
I sort of loathe that Sony coined this stupid terminology for video-game re-releases (where it more often than not makes zero sense - as pointed out by Hideo Kojima regarding the 'Director's Cut' of his own game) before - rightly - abandoning it after just two titles.
What creative control was wrestled away from the director of Hogwarts Legacy? What re-arrangement of scenes and sequences will be implemented to achieve their original, un-compromised and as yet un-seen vision of the story?
If WB can answer those questions then by all means, go ahead and call it 'Director's Cut'. If it's just some extra features and missions, slap 'complete edition' on the box and be done with this pretentious nonsense.
Poor Rocksteady. Destroyed by execs.
Gaming would be a much better place without the money men making creative decisions.
At least they have work while they regroup and lick their wounds.
Far too many good devs didnt have this fall back position.....
@Dodoo If you paid for a piece of supposedly delicious steak, how would you feel if the waiter served you a plate of veggie and told you it's healthier for you? Same for the money men.
Things are a lot more complicated.
@AK4tywill Complete Edition, Game of the Year Edition, Final Mix, Director's Cut... What does it matter what you call it, as long as they explain what the re-release contains?
WB resorting to double dipping on the only success they've had in years after yet another failed live service scheme?...... Shocking
Too bad for Rocksteady and anyone else chasing these trends.
@Dodoo If not for money men we wouldn't be gaming at all.
They need to fire whoever is forcing these live service decisions.
@KoopaTheGamer Because words mean things until they're abused to the point of becoming meaningless.
'Director's Cut' is a phrase that has a purpose and communicates intent and content. If the phrase is overly-abused and mis-used it will become as useless as 'deluxe edition', 'gold edition', 'premium edition' 'ultimate edition' etc. etc.
Different publishers having their own inconsistent vocabulary to convey 'completeness' is frustrating (I can't be the only one who has to regularly search online for which version of X game is the best to buy), but 'Director's Cut' is valuable because it already has a universal meaning and tasteless game publishers are willing to destroy that for the sake of a tacky nonsense marketing gimmick.
Since the creative leads were driven away by Suicide Squad to start a new studio (and took the good people with them), any future games will be basically from a different studio, and I will have no expectations one way or the other until they release something to evaluate.
The full Bloomberg piece is interesting reading and paints a slightly different picture than the simple one of ‘meddling money men’. Sounds like a lot of the issues were caused by the now-former studio heads themselves. For one thing, they were planning a multiplayer puzzle game before WB even approached them about Suicide Squad. So that alone kills the narrative they were forced away from their single player melee roots.
How about just letting them make single player games instead of forcing them to jump on trends
Hogwarts Legacy: Give Us More Money Edition
Director's Cut probably just means extra non essential, and probably boring, content.
Rocksteady are long gone. They exist in name only. It's not the same people who developed the Arkham trilogy.
Will the director's cut have interactive classes like Bully? Curfews for what essentially are kids attending school? Paintings and environments that are not copy pasted all over the place? Class points if you do well in the interactive classes and not be out/get caught after curfew? You know, things that Bully got right 20 years ago which makes you feel like a student. Something that one of the biggest studios in the world cannot get right with today's technology.
Why is a new version needed already? And more importantly, why can't Avalanche Software do it on their own? Let Rocksteady focus on something else?
These publishers sure are doing a good job of destroying the few really good Western AAA game developers that are left in the industry.
Even with their myriad flaws, companies like SEGA, Capcom, Nintendo, Bandai-Namco, and Square-Enix are why I'm still invested in this hobby.
I don't really think a studio providing help to another studio while their next project is being figured out is a bad thing. This sounds entirely normal and healthy.
@Cjam36 Yeah. It better then laying off half the studio like it used to be.
@jorel262 Avalanche Software is probably busy also working on the sequel…
Maybe they will finally add quidditch to it. 😆
Sadly, this is the beggining of the end i predicted for rocksteady. Suicide squad was a terrible idea they should
have back tracked on years prior.
Only chance for them is to go back to doing more Batman Arkham to get themselves back on their feet.
The castration of rocksteady has ruined any release from Warner Brother Games for me. Rocksteady should be their crown jewel, instead they ruined the studio on a game that neither the fans or the developers wanted. I don't see the studio surviving for much longer which is a shame as Arkham Knight still holds up today almost 10 year later.
@HUMPERDOO Wow that adds a lot of context. Story should probably be amended to include that to prevent the spread of false narratives. Running with only partial information will just result in comments about how the execs ruined Rocksteady, when that is clearly not the full story.
Honestly if you are Rocksteady and your creative leads choose to pursue a multiplayer puzzle game... and then choose to switch to a live service suicide squad game it puts a lot more blame on their shoulders rather than execs. They had already chosen to abandon the single player games that made them successful.
What is amazing to me is that since day one, it seemed very clear that Suicide Squad was going to flop, yet there are Executives, paid millions of dollars, can do all the market research in the world thought they had a BILLION dollar game on their hands.
@AK4tywill "What creative control was wrestled away from the director of Hogwarts Legacy?"
The answer to that as you know is none, they just wanted a cool sounding name to give to their re-release 😅 like you said words don't really mean anything anymore, especially to these execs that just want to maximize profit.
There is a lot to improve in Hogwarts Legacy, so I could see an enhancement being a worthwhile endeavor if they really get ambitious.
More likely though it will just be the equivalent of a decent DLC pack to reel in a few more million sales before the inevitable announcement of Legacy 2.
Please just make a hogwarts sequel at this point. The groundwork is there for something - pun not intended - magical. It just needs some refinement (stronger story quests for a start)
@AK4tywill Kojima’s last game had a director’s cut, I’m not sure if he abandoned it.
I mean, if they want to redo the game to make you actually feel like a student, sure, otherwise just do a sequel that does it all better and focuses on the student aspect.
@IamJT Quite. I’m no fan of corporations, but I’m not a fan of selective truth either. Sounds like WB’s only real dumb*** move was wanting it made live service partway through development. Everything else seems to have been down to the RS heads, the info on which comes from developers at RS, not WB suites. Sounds like development was a fluster duck from the outset.
Is this the equivalent of getting traffic duty after being the world's greatest detective.
Isn’t this a bit like benching your closer, then pulling them off the bench to be the ball boy for the 2nd string pitcher out of the bullpen?
@AK4tywill Directors cut has always been a meaningless term. Very few things released as a director's cut were actually the original vision of the director. It was a marketing gimmick to double dip on DVD sales for die hard fans.
The director is the person who cuts the original version of the film too (usually). And there's zero guarantee that the director has more freedom in the "directors cut" than the original. Often execs just want extra scenes included that they can market on the back of the box. Sometimes directors cuts even involved filming extra scenes - they aren't even cuts!
When Villeneuve was asked about directors cuts he replied "Arrival is the directors cut".
There are directors cuts which are genuinely the director getting the chance to undo some meddling that prevented them from presenting their original vision. But that's not what studios are considering when they stick the directors cut label on something.
Rebel Moon is a perfect example of how stupid the term is and has always been. Zack Snyder was in total control of the original cut for Rebel Moon. The "director's cut" was planned by the Netflix executives before the original cut had even been released.
Who told them to do third person shooter? Go back to melee. Can't they go back to making another batman game? actually I'd prefer a teen titans game. Or a game based on Damien Wayne. But if it was teen titans, they could make it a team based action rpg. I think that would be cool.
Removed - off-topic
As someone who really liked hogwarts, i hope they add a year 2 via DLC.
Nothing needed much changing that couldnt be done via added content in a massive DLC - they do not need to redo the map adding more merlin trials!
Having seen suicide squad though, i dread to think...
Damn. It's like, maybe they should have made a squad based, single player (or coop at a push) melee focused game.
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