Rocksteady and Warner Bros. have announced that Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has been delayed all the way until next year, now set to launch on 2nd February 2024.
“We have made the tough but necessary decision to take the time needed to work on getting the game to be the best quality experience for all players,” the Twitter image statement reads.
“Thank you to our amazing community for the continued support, patience and understanding. Thee is much more to share in the months ahead and we look forward to seeing you in Metropolis next year.”
This follows reporting in early March that the game would be delayed after a disappointing reaction to the game’s major gameplay reveal in February. At that time, the game was expected to release in May, but it has now been pushed back by a whopping nine months.
Will that be able to address the complaints and fears over the game’s direction? Almost certainly not without a massive amount of work. 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. There’s also 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 of making the game 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 changed easily.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has already 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. Now it’s February 2024, of course.
