Suicide Squad Dev Rocksteady Suffers More Layoffs as PS5 Game Hits PS Plus

Warner Bros. Discovery: The Corporate Suicide Squad

A single player Suicide Squad game from them could have been good.

It's just sad to see people lose their jobs over things outside of their control. By most accounts the game is technically very good. Perhaps the people who decided to make it a GaaS mess should quit in solidarity.

When I was younger, I would have loved to have found work in the video game industry. These days I'm glad I didn't.

I tried suicide squad for the first time last night and god the tutorial section does not entice you to keep playing it's so bland.

When will companies learn it'd save them a hell of a lot more money in the long term if they fire the decision makers who force this stuff on broader development teams than if they fire the actual, boots in the ground talent that can help them recoup the losses by working on other, future projects?

There's no way in hell the salaries of such staffers comes close to the cost of continuing to employ people who make the bad decisions when the value added by their future potential is taken into account. No suit is going to make you a hit. But they sure as hell will help deliver you utter bombs.

I've never disagreed with a review more than PushSquare's 7/10 for Suicide Squad except for perhaps it's Concord review.

Repetitive gameplay, horrible dialogue, characters constantly holding the idiot ball, bugs galore and what is quite simply nothing less than spiteful treatment of several beloved characters.

I hold no ill-will towards those who were just doing their jobs. But I have no sympathy whatsoever for the people who were actually pulling the strings.

2025 begins the same way 2024 ended.

Asian developers are rising up while the West is literally burning.

Oh no…..anyway when’s the wonder women gaming coming.

They're so cooked. Such a shame.

Maybe they should try to make a good game. It seems that idea never occured to them. There was nothing good about that game. The gameplay was terrible. Nobody cares about Suicide Squad and the characters are awful. Then add some live service in to make sure it failed.

For the employees who were just following designs given to them by higher ups, I feel sorry for them and hope they end up in better places.

For Rocksteady itself? I’m good with them just going away at this point, especially since they just can’t be bothered to pump out a 60fps patch for Arkham Knight on any console, but COULD pump out a game that no one asked for and (judging from the sales and Steam player counts) barely anyone wanted.

It's a shame that the people who create absolute art, are the victims of CEO's and other's who are 'in charge' dumb decisions.

I wish NRS, Monolith, and Rocksteady could up and leave. WB is definitely going to kill each of them anyway.

It’s a shame as there’s talent there but when GaaS is pushed it’s often a poor result.

Maybe if they try TWO live service games no one outside of management asked for, they’ll make a comeback.

But of course, nature is healing I guess, japanese/korea/chinese game developers that make good games are getting raise/ps5 pro/money, while western devs that make bad games are getting layoffs instead.

Not surprising and expected, others will soon follow.

I put a little time into Suicide Squad today once it was up on PS Plus. I'm to the point where I'm supposed to go kill Green Lantern and I just can't care. It's so bland and repetitive, and there is zero joy in leveling or finding gear. Time to delete and give The Stanley Parable a go.

Losses are just as instructive as profits so a good lesson for the industry as whole and hopefully a better future with games we want to play.

@Deadhunter A very good choice!

Gaas meshed into a single player, horrific writing, boring and reptitive gameplay and art style not great. Harley was such a downgrade from the Arkham games in the design. I assumed the studio stays open solely for the name Rocksteady and seeing potential if they can rebound

@ECharles yeah cause WB will totally take the right message from all of this. What an obscene thing to say. Especially in an industry where you can release something that is a critical and commercial success, and still lose your job.

@PorkChopExpress They will probably get a extra bonus after hitting their target when they fired some people.

What sucks is the people responsible for this are never the ones to pay any price. Instead the workforce who did their jobs are the ones to lose them, not the executives who made the awful decisions that were responsible for such a horrible game.

How about companies stop making gaas games I don't wish anyone lose there jobs but if it's the only way stop theses crappy gaas games then it's the only way

@revansgc well said. Sad but true

I just want to know what the hell Rocksteady and WB did with the almost year-long delay they did after the initial reveal was roundly panned on social media. I haven't played the game but I can't see any differences between the gameplay reveal and the streams/reviews/commentary I've seen since release.
I suspect that the time was mainly used to try and 'reset' the marketing cycle by WB, rather than try to take into account any of the feedback that had come from players. (I appreciate it would have been a momentous ask in many respects, but it's not like WB/Rocksteady weren't warned that the game had the appeal of a bucket of tepid sick to the market broadly.)

Could sold millions of copies by making another Batman game. Drop the Arkhamverse, start afresh. Do Batman Beyond. Do something based on The Batman. I dunno. It's frickin' Batman. The guy is evergreen, the Arkham games still sell pretty well even today on digital storefronts.

But no. Sacrifice your cashcow studio, supposedly one of the best of the PS3 and PS4 generations, on the altar of life service titles. Using a lifeless IP (Suddy Squad will NEVER be a big mainstream thing, guys, it shouldn't have taken you two movies and a game to figure that out) and tired looter shooter mechanics.

WB and Rocksteady would've won the Dunces-of-the-Year award were it not for the valiant efforts of Sony and Firewalk. Although now you can argue that Suddy Squad failed even at failing, getting one-upped like that.

Would these lay offs have been prevented if suicide squad was a monster hit? Not convinced that's the case.

the game was in development for a decade, the game finally comes out, regardless of its reception and sales, a lot of those people suddenly had little to nothing to do and no company wants to pay people they don't currently need. it could be years before they need somebody with their skillset again with how long games now take to make so it just makes sense to lay them off. It's not nice but people need to get used to it, people working in games can expect to have a job until the game they're working on is complete, afterwards, if you're not going to be needed on another project instantly, expect to be looking for another company that does. It's not an unheard of practice it's just new-ish to games as they adapt to much bigger projects and bigger budgets.

@LikelySatan WB gets the message and competitors do as well. Job loss/churn is critical and important in flourishing markets.