Promised as the key attraction for Sony’s February 2023 State of Play briefing, Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League was given a fifteen minute blowout which showcased more pure gameplay from the game than we’ve ever seen before. Oh and the Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League release date was reconfirmed as May 26, 2023. Which was nice.
The first video that we saw shone an extended light on a sprawling co-op encounter between the members of the titular Suicide Squad, Harley Quinn, Captain Boomerang, Deadshot and King Shark, as they navigate a massive open-world take on Metropolis in pursuit of a corrupted Flash. Very much akin to a looter shooter like Destiny, Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League is all about swinging (or in Deadshot’s case, flying) about the place, killing enemies, completing objectives and facing off bosses as the Suicide Squad attempt to reach the evil Brainiac, kill him and then get the bombs around their necks deactivated into the bargain.
Envisioned essentially as a four-player co-op squad shooter, though Kill The Justice League will invariably be better when played with friends, the game does allow AI partners to fill the void too, meaning that you can always get a game on the go and press on with, well, progressing. Speaking of the story, we also now know that Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League is set five years after the events chronicled in Batman Arkham Knight, a fact which helps to embed the game within the Arkhamverse while also allowing players to experience the world through the eyes of villains, rather than heroes, for the first time.
Another neat story beat which wasn’t previously revealed was that while The Flash, Batman, Superman and other members of the Justice League have been corrupted, Wonder Woman hasn’t. So it’ll be interesting to see the dynamic that springs up from that too – not least because she realises that the only way she can stop the corrupted Justice League is by killing them. So yeah, much drama.
You can catch the new co-op gameplay footage from Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League below:
Also much like the Destiny games, Kill The Justice League has its own Gearscore metric that measures how powerful each character is through the various pieces of gear that they’ve collected from completing missions and looted from the local environment. Brilliantly, you’re not just restricted to the cosmetic appearance of whatever gear you’re wearing either – instead, your cosmetic appearance can be entirely different and still let you enjoy the Gearscore of whatever armour and equipment it is that you’re wearing to get there in the first place.
Another neat wrinkle that Kill The Justice League brings is the notion of specialised gearsets that allow each member of the suicide Squad to channel certain abilities and qualities of other DC villains. In the video below we get to see our villains take on the powers of the hulking brute Bane, providing them with huge amounts of stopping power attacks in addition to the ability to emit venom gas into crowds of enemies. Given the wide range of other villains in the DCU, it’ll be interesting to see just how far developer Rocksteady takes this concept and I can’t wait to see what they come up with.
A big part of the Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League presentation was set aside to talk about the future of the game in a post-release capacity. The first and perhaps most notable thing is that, yes, battlepasses will exist but they will only be used to facilitate different cosmetics, rather than making any wholesale changes to stats, loot or anything else that might otherwise affect the balance of the game.
Beyond the battlepass, Rocksteady also promised additional playable characters and extra missions as well and though it wasn’t confirmed if such extra content would be paid for or not, I would be surprised to see them dole it out for free. In short, Suicide Squad: The Justice League is shaping up nicely and looks to put a neat narrative spin on the DCU for eager gamers who want to see how the other half lives, all the while combining it with tight squad based shooter action that looks to borrow from the best examples of that on the market. May 26th can’t come soon enough.
In the meantime, you can catch the behind-the-scenes video for Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League below:
Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League releases for PS5 on May 26, 2023.