Support NeoGAF

[Draugoth]

​

Dead On Arrival​

Last month in Los Angeles, video-game journalists got to play a few hours of the upcoming Suicide Squad game from Warner Bros. This week, they published previews, and the results weren’t pretty. “I left the preview event less optimistic than when I came in,” wrote IGN’s Destin Legarie. Eurogamer lamented that “this might not be the superhero fantasy you’re looking for.”

Negativity has long surrounded Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, which comes out on Feb. 2, in part because the franchise has underperformed but mostly because the game is illustrative of the type of trend-chasing that has led to a lot of heartbreak over the years.
Rocksteady Studios, the London-based developer behind the game, was once an industry darling thanks to the critically acclaimed Batman: Arkham series, which revolutionized superhero games with innovative gameplay and original stories rather than movie tie-ins. Then the company announced that it had pivoted from narrative, single-player action games to a third-person, multiplayer shooter, dismaying fans.

Even if the game turns out to be better than early previews suggest, it won’t be what many Arkham fans wanted from Rocksteady. Suicide Squad is an online live-service game, with cosmetic microtransactions and a stream of content that will continue after launch as Warner Bros. attempts to chase the Grand Theft Auto V and Fortnite dragons. These “games as a service,” which are monetized long after release, are so appealing to executives that Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. CEO David Zaslav recently said all of their big games would follow suit moving forward.
But the track record of companies that pivot to multiplayer is dismal. Recent live-service flops like Anthem, Redfall and Marvel’s Avengers all came from game studios that had previously been beloved for their single-player titles. Nobody wants Suicide Squad to suffer the same fate.
No wonder that this week following the previews, fans continued to repeat a rumor that won’t die — that the developers at Rocksteady had originally pitched a game about Superman, which was rejected by Warner Bros. and the company was instead forced to make this one.
In reality, Rocksteady never pitched or worked on a Superman game, according to people familiar with the company’s strategy over the last decade. Following the release of Arkham Knight in 2015, the studio began working on a Batman VR game and then an unannounced multiplayer game set in an original franchise, which has not been previously reported.

At the end of 2016, a Suicide Squad game at the Warner Bros. studio in Montreal was canceled, and the property was subsequently given to Rocksteady, which began working on the current iteration in 2017.
The Superman rumor appears to have originated from a user on X, formerly Twitter, named James Sigfield, who told me over direct messages that he had in fact been mistaken. “I corrected it in a later tweet, but it never caught on,” he said. “The person that gave me the info got the studios mixed up.”
Why, then, has such a flimsy rumor been so prevalent that fans continue to bring it up on social media today? Likely because nobody wants to believe the reality: that one of their favorite studios has been working on a multiplayer service game for more than half a decade.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League had several false starts and was delayed multiple times as the company tried to transition to an unfamiliar genre. By the time it comes out, it will have been in development for nearly seven years — about the same length of time that it took Rocksteady to release all three Arkham games.

The really bad news for Rocksteady is that the market is dangerously oversaturated. Even if the new Suicide Squad game overcomes low expectations and turns out to be a fantastic product, it’s hard to imagine a new multiplayer service game succeeding in an era when even stalwarts like Destiny can’t seem to grow.
This may not be a terrible outcome for fans, who hope that no matter how Suicide Squad performs, Rocksteady is permitted to get back to the type of games that made it an elite developer in the first place

 

[ManaByte]

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

All they had to do was make a new Batman game in 3-5 years.

Christ, this thing has been festering for a decade!

 

[Topher]

Trend-chasing driven games development. Sounds about right with the way things are. I don't care for Scheier but he is right here.

 

[adamsapple]

What a terrible way to send-off Kevin Conroy.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

let's hope engagement metrics are good in the first week for WB to save face just a little bit.

 

[Flabagast]

he's right though

 

[Interfectum]

All they had to do was make a new Batman game in 3-5 years.

Christ, this thing has been festering for a decade!

Yup, what a waste.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Netflix just put a bunch of DC movies up recently maybe they can save the game in Netflix Games.

 

[ManaByte]

he's right though

He's just stating what everyone knows for attention, while interviewing some guy on Twitter with 1,000 followers who tried to start a BS rumor about a Superman game.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

So by the time the game comes out, it'd be about 6-7 years of dev time. Better than Duke Nukem's 10 year cycle.

It was so long when they started working on the game, PUBG launched Dec 2017 and in fall 2017 the COD game that came out was WWII. GOW and RDR2 hadnt even launched yet (2018).

 

[Fake]

What a huge amount of money wasted.

 

[Blindy]

What a terrible way to send-off Kevin Conroy.

The right move would have been doing Batman Beyond and having Conroy as Elder Bruce Wayne, Rocksteady would have done so good in that universe.

 

[FalsettoVibe]

It may be dead, but what I hate is articles like this that influence people's decision and make them dislike the game before it even releases.

 

[MALpractice311]

Seven years. Seven fucking years of development on this trash game in this trash genre. By a studio known for single player games, who had previously released three single player games in that same amount of time.

Imagine the kind of financial damage Rocksteady is going to incur when this game flops and imagine instead where they would be if they had released two or three single player games instead.

To fans of GAAS, when people say GAAS is going to kill the industry, this is what we mean.

 

[Horseganador]

 

[SEGAvangelist]

Hopefully Rocksteady survives this and gets to make another SP game.

 

[Topher]

The right move would have been doing Batman Beyond and having Conroy as Elder Bruce Wayne, Rocksteady would have done so good in that universe.

Conroy died in 2022, FYI.

 

[Nydius]

Schreier getting a jump start promoting his inevitable "How Rocksteady's Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League Went Wrong" article that will likely hit in the next 3 months or so.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

All they had to do was make a new Batman game in 3-5 years.

They already tried this strategy. It wasn't working.

 

[Woopah]

He's just stating what everyone knows for attention, while interviewing some guy on Twitter with 1,000 followers who tried to start a BS rumor about a Superman game.

I think you're confusing "for money" with "for attention". Its what he does for a living.

 

[MALpractice311]

Schreier getting a jump start promoting his inevitable "How Rocksteady's Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League Went Wrong" article that will likely hit in the next 3 months or so.

Again, as others stated above, it's not like he's wrong.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I dont think even a bald headed eagle with the best vision in Earth's history could comprehend so much shit in view.

At least give gamers a magnifying glass with each game purchase.

 

[Imtjnotu]

Shouldn't have made it a live service game

 

[rofif]

we have seen this happening few times last year.
There is no saving this game even if it was the best have ever. Internet already likes to hate on it.
Of course I’ve not played it and it does look uninteresting but still…

 

[Majukun]

dunno, sounds to me like a self-fulfilling profecy...all the negativity around the game is gonna effect sales more than the quality of the game itself

 

[Nydius]

Again, as others stated above, it's not like he's wrong.

Did I say he was wrong?

He's just become a typical "opportunist journalist" like Paul Tassi.
Wait to see which way the internet winds are blowing, repeat it back to the internet for clicks.
Then act like HE called it all along when he releases his article about what contributed to the game's internal problems.

 

[balls of snow]

Its Anthem all over again. Time really is a flat circle.

 

[semiconscious]

this:

Following the release of Arkham Knight in 2015, the studio began working on a Batman VR game and then an unannounced multiplayer game set in an original franchise, which has not been previously reported...

sorta confirms this:

It felt like they were making a different game and 3/4's the way through got the SS license and wrapped skins for the characters around whatever game it was originally meant to be...

they had, indeed, been working on 'something'. when wb told them to do suicide squad, they just pasted suicide squad onto what they were already doing...

 

[{insert code here}]

Seven years and hundreds of millions of dollars pissed away. Oh well, they had a good run.

 

[Salty Popsicle]

Conroy died in 2022, FYI.

They could have recorded lines for at least two more batman games before 2022 came to pass.

 

[MALpractice311]

Did I say he was wrong?

He's just become a typical "opportunist journalist" like Paul Tassi.
Wait to see which way the internet winds are blowing, repeat it back to the internet for clicks.
Then act like HE called it all along when he releases his article about what contributed to the game's internal problems.

Well, it is his career after all. Writing op ed and articles with insider knowledge is what he does for a living.

For me, I'm looking forward to whatever he writes on this obvious shit show because I'm sure it will be filled with interesting details from his inside sources, much like the Bioware/Anthem shit show.

 

[Punished Miku]

What a terrible way to send-off Kevin Conroy.

Are people honestly this sentimental, or am I just an asshole?

I don't think he minds considering he took the job. He's working with the same people he's worked with on multiple games and knows these guys.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Seven years and hundreds of millions of dollars pissed away. Oh well, they had a good run.

But on a Dollar per HUD icon ratio, this game is a bargain.

 

[Salty Popsicle]

Suicide Squad game will flop badly, Warner Bros. game division will flounder, studios will be sold piecemeal along with IP to highest bidders.

 

[Warnen]

I blame Covid

 

[BennyBlanco]

preemptively pouring one out for rocksteady. they’re going out sad but they still made the GOAT superhero game and had a hell of a run.

 

[adamsapple]

Are people honestly this sentimental, or am I just an asshole?

I don't think he minds considering he took the job. He's working with the same people he's worked with on multiple games and knows these guys.

For him it was probably just another job, before his passing, but considering his legacy as Batman, it sucks as a fan that his final appearance as the character will be in this shitty game.

 

[Hudo]

Rocksteady should've been working on a Dune game.
And Monolith should've been working on something new with the Nemesis system in mind.
WB should also let a studio work on a Mad Max game.

 

[Gambit2483]

I know I joked about it before but I really hope Suicide Squad doesn't kill Rocksteady.

They deserve better than that.

 

[Holammer]

Seven years. Seven fucking years of development on this trash game in this trash genre. By a studio known for single player games, who had previously released three single player games in that same amount of time.

Imagine the kind of financial damage Rocksteady is going to incur when this game flops and imagine instead where they would be if they had released two or three single player games instead.

To fans of GAAS, when people say GAAS is going to kill the industry, this is what we mean.

Ramblings of a madman/revealed to me in a dream, yes... But I'm sure they retooled the game at least twice during development. WB got nervous and wanted to incorporate current trends into the game, restarting & stalling development further. For example, I don't think they had the 3D movement in early builds of the game.

 

[Blindy]

Conroy died in 2022, FYI.

Oh I mean Beyond should have been the next project after Arkham Knight but I get it, they wanted to get away from the Batman stuff.

 

[Mossybrew]

But I'm sure they retooled the game at least twice during development. WB got nervous and wanted to incorporate current trends into the game

Yeah this definitely has all the signs of major systems being shoehorned into an existing structure / lack of clear vision & leadership for what the game should ultimately be / pivots & changes dictated from the top moneymen.

 

[HL3.exe]

Feels like we're bordering on a crash, like with the Movie industry in the 50/60.

Ultra big budget make or break film productions that flopped too many times, one after the other. It actually fixed the industry by letting big studios produce Smaller tier films, like the (Godfather and Alien) by new and young directors at the time.

I'd say: Use the resources from AAA studios to build smaller, more risky, projects, but with the talent and craftsmanship of AAA developers. This is probably more healthy for the industry as a whole, as it's incentifying exploring stuff like new mechanics.

Edit: Probably not gonna happen, the 'crash' I mean. Games still make a lot of money, even if they're terrible.

 

[winjer]

More of these big GaaS need to fail miserably, so companies go back to make normal, good games.
So if this game flops hard, it's great news for us gamers, as it sends a clear message to the gaming industry: enough with all these GaaS.

 

[Ronin_7]

Rocksteady just a name at this point.

 

[Sanepar]

Maybe next time they will not be stupid to work on a Suicide Squad game, instead if it was a Batman game it would sell tons

 

[Fredrik]

It may be dead, but what I hate is articles like this that influence people's decision and make them dislike the game before it even releases.

It’s Schreier, has he ever written anything positive or anything without a negative twist? He’s a master grifter. Amazingly depressive to listen to no matter what it’s about.

 

[solidus12]

Sefton Hill left the studio.

 

[Tal Shiar Agent]

All they had to do was make a new Batman game in 3-5 years.

Christ, this thing has been festering for a decade!

A Batman Beyond game before we lost Conroy, alas.