Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League by Rocksteady's sexual harassment team- 2022

[Wiper]

Oh, definitely; Bioware just felt less of a shock because they happened to preface that by walking face-first into "it has to be open world and filled with quests" two times in a row; which itself followed immediately on from "it has to be less RPG and more action game and also you only have 18 months to develop it", also twice in row. Or, as it's also known, the "being bought by EA" effect. A depressing lesson in chasing the market.

[Alex W.]

Getting really in to Destiny so that multiple developers and publishers waste a decade chasing a market that doesn’t really exist is the funniest practical joke gamer dads have ever done.

[Kevvy Metal]

19 hours ago, Jg15 said:

Also, Its been 8 years since Knight, what have they been doing?

 

I had heard they were working on a Suicide Squad game way back in 2015, that was one year before the original film came out.

[Chindie]

It has the distinct whiff of troubled development about it.

 

I sincerely doubt there's many people at the rock face of the game dev world who want to make games riddled with MTX, multiple currency, loot box shit. Rocksteady will have some ideas, and maybe they did want to do something overtly different to the Arkham games they'd made their name with, but the switch to this kind of grim bollocks will have come from on high who want to sell a product that continually hoovers money with limited additional effort on top of the initial investment. Clearly the ROI in making a big budget story lead title isn't enough.

[Retroguy]

4 hours ago, thesnwmn said:

But I don't think that's early access. They can be a fully complete game on release. You're just adding prettier or cooler guns and costumes for people to buy.

 

If only that were the case. Games like Avengers and Anthem launched with gameplay systems which weren’t fleshed out and only scant content, all with the excuse that these would be fixed as part of GaaS. It’s more than just more guns and costumes.

 

Sure, some are pretty much complete, others are lacking a lot of components and content. Just like early access games. To me, they’re far closer to that than any service product, with the promise of things which could well never materialise.

[Lying Cat]

I really think that Division 2 was pretty much the model you need to shoot for with the GaaS model. Sure, you had your battle passes and the loot boxes (although I seem to remember those being in-game currency things) as well as a whole heap of costumes to spend real money on so your battle hardened fascist could kill people while dressed like a fireman or whatever.

 

But it also had a genuinely enjoyable single player campaign to play through that lasted what felt the exact right amount of time before you started getting into the gear grind of it all - and the gear grind wasn’t even too bad.

 

Everything that came after it seems to just be completely bare bones. I assume the developers reckon they can fix it up before people get to the point they need those systems in place? Or perhaps it’s a money grab where they want the cash and lie to themselves that it’s full speed ahead from that point.

[moosegrinder]

11 minutes ago, Lying Cat said:

heap of costumes to spend real money on so your battle hardened fascist could kill people while dressed like a fireman or whatever.

 

I could never reconcile this with the Division. It caused way too much dissonance in my brain that this game that took itself so ridiculously seriously had dumb arsed costumes and cosmetics.

[mushashi]

On 09/03/2023 at 19:19, Sarlaccfood said:

Such a bone-headed publisher decision to have both this and Gotham Knights be multiplayer GaaS games.
 

Years ago they could have seen the success of single-player games like Fallen Order and the Sony 1st Party crop and pivoted to make one of their games a trad single player release, to at least hedge their bets. But they just went all-in on both releases being GaaS.

 

Insane. What the hell were they thinking? Even in the best-case scenario and Gotham Knights was a success, Suicide Squad would have come along and eaten into their own player base surely?

 

EA secretly recently shitcanned their unannounced Single Player crossover game set in the Titanfall/Apex Legends universe so clearly even with the brand power of a highly successful Service Game, publishers aren't that interested in making big budget single players when they have other options.

 

Reading the summary of the article would indicate the delay is simply to polish it and bang in some more of dat content that Service Games live and die by, not to fundamentally change it because of the internet complaints about it.

[ryodi]

That’s a long delay and also not enough time to fix the issues everyone had from the trailer.

[footle]

Bloody hell.

[Stanley]

17 minutes ago, ryodi said:

That’s a long delay and also not enough time to fix the issues everyone had from the trailer.

The issue being everyone wants a completely different game. 

[Popo]

Hard to imagine they’re going to change anything of note about how the game works in 8 months and change. 

[dreamylittledream]

2 minutes ago, Popo said:

Hard to imagine they’re going to change anything of note about how the game works in 8 months and change. 

10 months until next February isn’t it?

 

You’re right though either way

[Popo]

1 minute ago, dreamylittledream said:

10 months until next February isn’t it?

 

You’re right though either way

Counting the additional time they’ve given themselves from the previous release date of May this year, I should have said. 

[Mr. Gerbik]

What can they possibly do in 10 months? Polish it up further, optimization - sure. But they can't drastically change the core of the game. Only thing I can think of is that they're taking this extra time to at least launch it in a decent state and maybe with more content than originally planned. They can't fundamentally change the game, but they can at least avoid further bad pr by avoiding launching in a broken/ unoptimized/ buggy state

[tobert]

How long has this game been in December!?! I mean the last Batman titles must have been 5+ years ago at least

[Gambit]

11 minutes ago, tobert said:

How long has this game been in December!?! I mean the last Batman titles must have been 5+ years ago at least

 

Its been 9 years since Rocksteadys last game according to Jason Schreier. Its surprising that they're still around.

[Chindie]

The issue, as said above, is the game is fundamentally just not one that people are enthused about. You can't fix that. The foundation of the game is not one that's going to sell gangbusters or blow people away. They made a mistake in the very earliest decisions they made (no doubt at the behest of the suits who want to nickel and dime every title).

 

Sadly those bad decisions could be fatal. Rocksteady hasn't put a title out for so long that they might not be able to take a flop, and given some big figures at the studio have left...

[Alex W.]

The last time Warner threw hundreds of millions of dollars at a DC project, realised it was unmarketable, and hastily course-corrected shortly before release it worked out so well.

[JamesC]

I have a feeling this may never be released. 

[Alex W.]

Now you mention it, are the tax laws around games different in a way that stopped the new Warner boss/killing machine from writing this off as a total loss? I’m surprised it survived.

[HarryBizzle]

3 hours ago, Mr. Gerbik said:

What can they possibly do in 10 months? Polish it up further, optimization - sure. But they can't drastically change the core of the game. Only thing I can think of is that they're taking this extra time to at least launch it in a decent state and maybe with more content than originally planned. They can't fundamentally change the game, but they can at least avoid further bad pr by avoiding launching in a broken/ unoptimized/ buggy state

I predict they’ll stick a load of riddler-style puzzles in.

 

I don’t see this as salvageable. 

[Sarlaccfood]

Could they maybe add some variety to the combat so that they don’t all just fire guns all the time? Like the characters could control more like you would think they would? (Hand to hand, boomerangs etc)

[Alex W.]

They’d have to not only create, test and balance all of those mechanics, they’d also have to create, test and balance enemies and bosses that they worked well against and then design combat spaces and script encounters for all of them.

[Mr. Gerbik]

28 minutes ago, Alex W. said:

They’d have to not only create, test and balance all of those mechanics, they’d also have to create, test and balance enemies and bosses that they worked well against and then design combat spaces and script encounters for all of them.

And that still wouldn't fix the fundamental issue that caused the negative reaction to the reveal.

 

 

In another (a better) timeline Rocksteady went on to work their magic with a different DC hero after Arkham Asylum, making an awesome single player experience which would probably have had a sequel out by now.

[Waggo]

I imagine there is more money to be made at this point by writing a warts n all book on the start to finish development process on this game, than from the actual game release itself.

 

I for one would love to read it.  Were the developers so confident in the gameplay they put front and centre in the Sony State of Play that the resulting backlash was a total shock to them, or was it a desperate ploy to ram home their misgivings to the suits?
 

Maybe even include the (unvarnished) story of development with the game itself, and salvage what they can.  Otherwise I can only see a bankrupt AAA studio at the end of this farce.

[Mr. Gerbik]

I recall that they were hinting at a Superman game within the Arkham games themselves. It's very possible that they were planning out a single player Superman game until the suits barged in saying "DESTINY IS HOT GAAS OUT THE ASS GET IT!" and they were forced to change course.

[Waggo]

It is going to be fascinating to find out, because one thing you can be sure of is that sooner or later the story will get out.

[df0]

Reads to me like they're waiting for the negative whirlwind to pass by. After the disastrous reveal of this and the failure of Square's Marvel's Avengers, why would they release it now or in the near future? Or they have no clue where to go from here and it's a Ubisoft's Skull & Bones scenario; needs to be out the door before a deadline.

[Broker]

Jez Corden says the delay is partly to remove the always online requirement.