Multiple reports have emerged to suggest that Rocksteady’s co-op superhero game Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League could be getting delayed from its May 2023 release date.
Per Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier this will see the game pushed back to the second half of 2023, with Warner Bros. giving Rocksteady more time to polish, optimise and squash bugs. However, Giant Bomb’s Jeff Grubb has said in the Game Mess Decides podcast that his sources suggest it could even be pushed all the way back to 2024.
The news is coming just a couple weeks after Suicide Squad was heavily featured in a PlayStation State of Play stream, finally showcasing and explaining a lot of the game’s systems and gameplay in detail, and it could be that the public reaction to that showcase has spooked Warner Bros. executives.
In particular, it seems clear that Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League leans in on various online action RPG systems, such as having cumulative gear scores, incremental character improvements, a battle pass, and other elements similar to games like Destiny 2 or the ill-fated Marvel’s Avengers. Beyond that, there’s been critique over some homogeneity between the four playable characters, all of whom use a variety of guns for ranged combat (even if their trademark weapons are boomerangs) and have similar abilities to let them quickly traverse the open world.
If that is the underlying reason for Warner Bros. to delay the game, and that it’s not simply another month or two to polish the game, you do have to wonder what they hope can happen in that time to address those complaints. Needing the DLC and battle pass to meet internal sales and revenue projections won’t change – and more development time means the cost only increases – and the gameplay will have been built up around this action RPG character growth and mixed in ranged combat. These are fundamental aspects that cannot be turned around in short order.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has been in development for what feels like forever, with the last game that developer Rocksteady Studios produced being Batman: Arkham Knight in 2015. The game had long been rumoured – sometimes as a Superman game – before it was eventually announced in 2020 for a 2022 release. That slipped back to early 2023, and eventually settled on 26th May 2023.
Given this latest reporting, we’ll see how long that official date lasts.
Source: Bloomberg, Game Mess Decides via VGC
