Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League - Review

From the creators behind the Batman: Arkham series, the ragtag mismatch chaos of the Suicide Squad is being brought to us. Taking us down a third-person action light looter shooter, the Suicide Squad have one task. They must Kill the Justice League.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is an interesting venture into the Arkham universe that has been created by Rocksteady Studios. No longer are we playing the World’s Greatest Detective, or his band of misfit sidekicks. Now we are in firm control of the Suicide Squad. Harley Quinn, Deadshot, King Shark and Captain Boomerang have been tricked into implanting a nanite bomb into each other and must now follow directions or risk a potential mishap with their heads.

A dramatic shift from the super serious, heavily dramatic themes of the Arkham series. Suicide Squad is a much more upbeat, comedy filled adventure, filled with moments of shocking reality. The interactions between characters will often leave you laughing, groaning in pain at bad puns and just really forgetting that this game has you playing four battled hardened criminals with a light grasp of right and wrong. The crushing reality of the situation is brought back into focus at somewhat regular intervals. With the deaths of iconic characters, Captain Boomerangs serial killer obsession with cutting off the fingers of his targets, or even Harley Quinn’s brutality in shooting a beaten and defeated target, right between the eyes. Suicide Squad is a rollercoaster of emotions.

It is important to note that Suicide Squad is a live-service game. As a result there is a lot of side missions, and objectives that lean into teaching you what to expect at the end game. A lot of the side objectives throughout the main story, will unlock upgrades to your vehicles, different afflictions to hit people with, and general upgrades to how you can develop your gear. These are mostly fun and can be done in a few minutes each. Generally they are the same sort of protect points A, B and C from enemies, with little modifiers thrown in to keep you on your toes. These range from only being able to damage enemies with grenades, to only being able to damage with counter strikes. There will generally be an additional benefit alongside these. But other than that, there is not much variety in these side missions that will make up the bulk of the end game. If you enjoy them, you’ll find the end game enjoyable. If you don’t? There is a decent chunk of a story to get through to keep you entertained.

The third person looter shooter aspect of the game lends itself to the chaotic traversal of the city. Teaming up with people, you’ll find which of the four characters you enjoy playing more and in turn become far more familiar and acquainted with their method of travel. Doing the time trial races did help get better with the characters I was less enthused to play as. I found Deadshot and Captain Boomerang far less enjoyable to fly across the city with than Harley Quinn and particularly King Shark. Deadshot has a jetpack, which overheats too quickly. Captain Boomerang has a teleporting boomerang (or a super speed boomerang technically). Harley Quinn felt more traditional to the Arkham style with a grapple hook as well as the ability to swing on a little drone that always follows her. King Shark uses his primal shark rage to charge faster, leap further and jump higher. There is far less drawback on King Shark’s traversal than there is with the other three, so I found myself regularly playing as him.

Each individual character has their own talent tree that you’ll level up as you play them. Occasionally a mission will note that a particular character is ‘Psyched up’, meaning they’ll have benefits if you play them for that mission. Such as more experience, less damage taken, more damage dealt, and more resources dropped throughout the battle on top of a few other small benefits. Switching to these characters does make these missions easier and helps level up the characters you may not be playing as regularly. In terms of playing through the game, however? You’re likely to find the one character you prefer playing as and pretty much stick to them. There is a unique talent tree that you’ll get new unlocks in with each level, which reward you for playing better, getting better combos, and engaging in a particular style of gameplay with that character. Which would be great if they felt like they did anything. There was never a time where I felt the upgrades were all that noticeable. This may be a case of having King Shark being over-levelled, or just simply not picking the right talents alongside each other. Whatever the case, the level-up system never really felt all that useful and lends questions as to why it even was necessary on top of the loot.

Suicide Squad isn’t as visually impressive as the Arkham titles. Matching a visual style to the more upbeat and comic book feeling of the game, rather than the dark and gritty, hyper stylised visuals of the Arkham series. This will be divisive for some players, but for the most part the extreme amounts of purple enemies, the flying damage numbers, and the colourful pop of the environment, that characters and the flying bullets make for an experience that almost triggers the slot machine section of the brain. The cosmetic changes and outfits that you get for the characters also allows you to add your own flair to the characters and how they are presented through-out the game in the different cutscenes. The game is full of colour and pizzaz, and if players take a moment to acknowledge the game as its own product, rather than a connected one, then the design choices make infinitely more sense.

The character designs themselves are very well thought out. The addition of face deterioration and eye colour change for the Justice League members that have been corrupted by Brainiac make them easily identifiable, but also easy to tell something is wrong. The designs for The Flash, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman are very well thought out, and instantly recognisable. Superman is Superman, and Batman is Batman. These are difficult to screw up. Even side characters like Penguin, Gizmo and Lex Luthor have their unique style, but are instantly recognisable as to who they are. Problematically, outside of the individual characters, the world environment, the enemies, the vehicles and pretty much anything that isn’t an individual character is somewhat… lacking.

The story of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is without a doubt the best part of the game. It may end on a sort of a fizzle, as being a live-service title, the endgame takes precedence over a defining end to the story. However the journey that the Suicide Squad members go through, developing techniques to turn essentially three normal people and an anthropomorphic King Shark, to be able to not only fight the meta-humans of the Justice League, but kill them. Kill the Justice League may mark the end of the Arkhamverse of games in terms of the good guys. But the bad guys are thriving, surviving, and killing their way through Metropolis. To reveal any story beats would defeat the main reason for playing the game, but the fundamental story is one of the strongest that Rocksteady have ever made. There are highs, lows, funny moments, very serious moments, very dark moments and every other emotional moment you can think of.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is not going to be for everyone. Live-service titles tend to split audiences, and with this being the final performance piece from Kevin Conroy, the man touted as the voice of Batman, some players may have wished for a tighter more focused experience. Suicide Squad is unbelievably funny, with many story beats that tug at your heart strings, make you root for the bad guys and in the end, keep coming back for more. The visual designs, the unique style of traversal and just the simple interactions between characters and great and there is an enjoyable experience here for those who are seeking it, but coming in for a more focused story might leave you wanting.

The Score

7.5

Review code provided by WB Games

The Pros

Incredibly funny dialogue

Solid gameplay loop

Justice League are terrifying

A heartfelt thank you to Kevin Conroy

The Cons

End game feels lacking compared to the main game

Brainiac is kind of weak as a final villain

Visually lacking compared to previous titles