I don’t think any video game has left me feeling more emotionally conflicted than Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. Rocksteady’s latest game after a lengthy absence from the gaming scene, Suicide Squad flips the script on the action that the studio pioneered in its Arkham trilogy of Batman games. Heroes are out, supervillains are in, and the developer best known for creating single-player games that have been nothing short of genre-defining has made a shift to live-service action.

At its core, Suicide Squad is a team-based looter-shooter starring some of the most reprehensible characters in the DC Universe, all gunning to save the day from a Justice League that has been irredeemably corrupted by Brainiac. The big brain has been conquering Earths in the multiverse and has finally made his way to the Arkhamverse, leveling Metropolis and transforming its population into an army of purple targets for you to annihilate.

Where Suicide Squad succeeds is in creating a foundation for the months of additional action to come, a base to tell more stories–and sell you some trendy cosmetic gear–as Task Force X explores Metropolis. The action is beautifully polished, the story mode has scenes that’ll make you laugh out loud, and the game looks phenomenal…but at the same time, every positive comes with an asterisk attached.

But first, let’s talk about that gameplay. Don’t expect Arkham Knight 2.0 gameplay in Suicide Squad, as this gang makes use of bullets, grenades, and special abilities to wipe the floor with enemies when compared to Batman and his ability to cripple criminals for life. If there’s one thing that Rocksteady excels at, it’s a combat cadence that never feels tiring, and Suicide Squad is loaded with empowering moments.

Gunplay is solid, each character has a unique traversal method, and once you start plugging some points into their respective skill-trees, the damage numbers begin to skyrocket. I think your mileage may vary between how each character handles, as I definitely found myself favoring the likes of King Shark and Deadshot when I played the game. Deadshot’s jetpack turns him into an airborne weapons platform, King Shark can ferociously leap around a stage, and Captain Boomerang is a trickster who uses a Speed-Force gauntlet to zip from point to point. Harley Quinn is the weak link for me personally, as her traversal methods are a nod to the Arkham games, only without the speed and flexibility I’d want from this system.

Once these various systems click for you, though, they feel fantastic. They can be further enhanced with mods from your support crew, extending their range and effectiveness to make you even deadlier, leading to some thrilling rooftop encounters across multiple dimensions.

And compared to the obvious competition, Marvel’s Avengers, Suicide Squad also does a damn good job at allowing you to maintain a sense of rhythm and flow in combat. The Avengers game had some brilliant ideas, don’t get me wrong, but it was also an experience that could be infuriating due to the various mechanics designed to unfairly halt any momentum you’d have when playing through a mission. Suicide Squad fortunately avoids that, and thanks to short cooldowns on special abilities, an arsenal of high-tech gear, and a team that backs you up, you’ll never feel outgunned even when you’re facing off against an actual massive gun.

Suicide Squad also has a sense of humor that is actually invigorating when compared to the grim and gritty Snyderverse of DCU films. It’s obvious that Rocksteady took inspiration from Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy for this game, as the motley crew of renegades are forced to work together and eventually form attachments with one another throughout the 10-hour campaign. King Shark and Boomerang are the highlights here, while Deadshot’s straight man routine gels well with the pure chaos energy of Harley Quinn.

That said, I’m bummed at other story elements. There’s a controversy raging around the use of Batman in this game, and while I won’t throw any spoilers here, it does make me sad to see how his tale ends. For such a beloved character voiced by the late Kevin Conroy, I think this Batman got a raw deal in Suicide Squad and deserved better. But more on that in a separate feature.

Ultimately, Suicide Squad is a game with an identity crisis. It’s no secret that Warner Bros. loves money and has mentioned in shareholder meetings how it intends to double down on stuffing monetization elements into its games, something that last year’s release of Mortal Kombat 1 suffers heavily from. Suicide Squad’s related issue is that the game’s levels are mostly short and repetitive in their design, seldom offering variety in their design.

Go here, shoot that, pick up this resource. Rinse and repeat through campaign missions that feel more like side-quests in their construction. There are some highlights on your path to take out the Justice League, and if it wasn’t for the brilliant combat, these would be dull to the extreme. Hopefully, the next year of content will introduce some variety to the Metropolis sandbox. I’ll be reviewing the endgame content as well, right after I’ve sunk a month into Suicide Squad’s post-launch content.

I think if I have a takeaway from Suicide Squad, is that it doesn’t offer the kind of innovation I’d expect from a Rocksteady game. You think of how Batman: Arkham Asylum redefined action after it launched, how Arkham City polished those ideas to a mirror sheen, and how Arkham Knight pushed that gameplay to the extreme, and Suicide Squad doesn’t quite feel like it’s the product of that direction.

Instead, it’s a game that feels inspired by some of the success stories of the last decade, cherry-picking the best bits and tossing them into a bowl to create a unique experience. It’s the devil-may-care attitude of Sunset Overdrive mixed with the Borderlands 3 drive for shinier loot and The Division’s underrated buildcrafting, mixed with Destiny-esque multiplayer and an art direction that I’m convinced was intended to draw in the Fortnite kiddos.

That’s not a bad thing at all, and Suicide Squad largely sets the stage for a fun year of chaos and explosions. It might not be genre-defining, but with some of the live-service plans that Rocksteady has in place, it can be industry-leading when given enough time to mature.

But that’s the game that it could be, and right now, I’m looking at the game that it is. If Arkham Knight’s post-launch life is any indication–something that’s seriously glossed over when discussing the best Batman game–then we’re in for a great time as Rocksteady has big plans to flesh out the Suicide Squad saga.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is available now on PS5, Xbox Series consoles and PC.


Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League review

As a single-player experience, Suicide Squad stands tall with its sharp writing, fantastic humor, and a well-oiled engine that delivers gorgeous mayhem. But it’s also a game hamstrung by unnecessary live-service ideas that have been clumsily wedged into its design.

 7.5
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League was reviewed on PS5