MarvelandDChave released one game each so far in 2024, and even though Marvel’s offering hasn’t technically launched yet, it’s already shaping up to be better received than the effort its comic book rival has served up. A feat made even more impressive when you consider the game in question,Marvel Rivals, is free-to-play and little more thanOverwatchwith superheroes.
Marvel Rivals making a bigger impact during a closed beta thanSuicide Squad: Kill The Justice Leaguehas done in six months is impressive. What makes it slightly less impressive is that the latter was exactly what most expected it to be - an uninspired live service game that has tainted the legacy of the Arkham trilogy, and that’s coming from one of the few people who actually kind of liked it.
Emphasis on “liked”. Despite enjoying its base story, like so many others, I have not revisited Kill The Justice League for any of its post-launch content.Only 572 players returned to the game on Steamto check out the introduction of Mrs. Freeze in season two.
Kill The Justice League could have worked, all it needed to do was be an entirely different game. Simple, right? It wasseason two’s delayed launchcoinciding with the Marvel Rivals beta that had me not only wondering what a Suicide Squad hero shooter might have looked like, but also starting to hanker for one.
The game’s core concept could have remained too. In fact, it could have been exactly that which set a DC hero shooter apart from games like Overwatch andValorant. Instead of both teams mixing and matching from the same roster of characters, you’re assigned to either heroes or villains at the start of each match. The heroes try to reprimand the villains while the villains try to, you guessed it, kill the Justice League.
There’s been so much focus on whereRocksteadywent wrong when it comes to Kill The Justice League. Trying to turn the next game in the Arkham series into a poorly thought out live service title, the repetitive gameplay, and (spoiler alert) the twist everyone saw coming, the Justice League you spent the entire game killingwasn’t actually the real Justice League at all. The only member of the heroic group who is definitely dead at this point is Wonder Woman. At least she’s getting a game of her own.
Things Could Have Been So Different
Whether you hate Suicide Squad or not, it’s still a game made by the same studio that created one of the best superhero trilogies of all time, and evidence of that sometimes shows through in Kill The Justice League. The character designs are incredible, as are most of the voices behind them. Everything about them would have been celebrated had this been DC’s answer to Marvel Rivals before anyone knew Marvel Rivals even existed. Even the criticized backdrop of the game, which is largely bare and uninspired, would have felt far more fitting. Plus, you wouldn’t have been spending more than ten to 15 minutes at a time there.
Being set in the Arkhamverse, Rocksteady clearly wanted to continue telling a story. However, between figuring out how Batman’s not dead and attempting to split that story over multiple seasons, it fumbled that too. Again, though, that framework could have worked if Kill The Justice League had been an Overwatch-like. TakeConcord’s approach. Firewalk is trying to tell an episodic story via its hero shooter, but its biggest problem is trying to do that with characters nobody knows, so we don’t have a connection to them. Guess who millions of people are already invested in? Harley Quinn, Superman, Joker, Poison Ivy, and the countless other heroes and villains a Kill The Justice League hero shooter could have kicked off with and then added over time, building on the game’s story and telling a new chapter every time a new character was introduced. Oh, and there would have also been no reason to explain how and why Batman is still alive because this theoretical hero shooter would not have been set in the same universe as the Arkham games.
The more I think about it, the more I wish this had been the route DC had taken. I love Marvel, but when DC is at its best, it has a dark, gritty energy that its colorful comic book counterpart just can’t match. Unfortunately, the ship on a Suicide Squad vs. Justice League hero shooter has long since sailed for so many reasons. For starters, it would be labeled a very transparent attempt to piggyback on any success Marvel Rivals ends up having. Even if DC and whichever studio it chooses to develop such a game were fine with that, if development started today, we’d not see the game until the hero shooter boom’s over. It’s already starting to feel oversaturated. If you’re going to start developing a triple-A live service game now, it’s no good copying what’s popular. You need to try and predict what’s next, or with how long it takes to develop a triple-A title today, you’ll need to try and guess what will be popular after what’s next.
