Is it worth revisiting Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League a year later?

This week, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has reached more users than ever before, as it is included among the PlayStation Plus Essential games for January. However, the question arises: is it worth revisiting or trying it for the first time nearly a year after its release? This question came to mind when I learned about the big sales on Steam for the game, just as Rocksteady announced that it would cease updates in January. Since its arrival, the title has gained a negative reputation as a failure in the online service model: a game that Warner Bros. hoped would generate revenue for years, but which launched without life.

Returning to Suicide Squad a year later is an experience full of contradictions. Although my initial review noted positive aspects of the game, especially regarding the gameplay, this revisit reminded me that those elements are overshadowed by a poor user interface, monotonous and repetitive mission design, and a plethora of confusing systems and terminology. Curiously, I think it is worth downloading Suicide Squad, but once you play it, you understand why it didn't become the major phenomenon of games as a service.

After ten months without playing, I decided to start the game with the goal of unlocking Deathstroke, the last new character available post-launch. Upon opening the game, I encountered a constant message saying "unable to connect to the server." My PS5 allowed me to launch the application even while downloading an update, which gave me a bad impression from the start. Once updated, I was greeted by a taunt from King Shark that displayed placeholder text instead of the player’s name and score, which affected my motivation to move on. Everything became even more confusing when I tried to load my save game, only to realize there was no new content. To unlock Deathstroke, I needed to return to the main menu and start a new session in Episode 7 of the available content.

When loading the new episode, I was bombarded with various messages about the new additions. At that moment, I recalled how frustrating the user experience was. All the menus in Suicide Squad are cluttered and unclear, making it difficult to find basic information like the steps to obtain Deathstroke or whether I had already completed a particular mission. The various benefits and character effects felt more like a tongue-twister. Searching for an online guide resulted in a clearly AI-generated document, reflecting the scarcity of coverage about this game a year after its release. Eventually, I was able to orient myself and understand how to play the missions to reach level 30 of the episode and access the battle against Brainiac to unlock Deathstroke. The fact that restarting the game was so complicated highlighted the reasons for its failure; if a game as a service is so difficult to approach, it is unlikely to attract a casual audience.

Once I started moving around Metropolis with Harley Quinn, Deadshot, King Shark, and Captain Boomerang, I recalled a more positive feeling: playing Suicide Squad feels good. The movement is agile, and each character has a distinct personality, adding fun to traversing the battlefields, taking down hordes of enemies. This shooting and platforming dynamic could be celebrated in another type of game, but here it becomes a small gem lost in a sea of mediocrity.

However, after an hour of gameplay, the repetitiveness became evident. The missions are so sparse that most boil down to "eliminate enemies until you complete the objective." I had hoped that the new missions in Episode 7 would offer a more unique design, but most consisted of eliminating a certain number of enemies within a time limit. It felt strange that the added content took place in Elseworlds, rather than leveraging the vast and beautiful open world of Metropolis. The lack of recontextualization in the content once again highlighted that Suicide Squad had no opportunities to thrive.

After hours of repetition, I finally reached Brainiac's level to unlock Deathstroke. I was disappointed to discover that the raid-style mission changed the final confrontation into a fight against standard enemy hordes, which was precisely what I had been doing beforehand and during the mission itself. After a while battling those enemies, Brainiac appeared only to be quickly eliminated by Deathstroke, a metaphorical representation of the game's fate.

Finally, I managed to unlock Deathstroke. I loved his movement abilities, which allow him to glide through the air and float while shooting, but after a few minutes of gameplay, one move got me stuck in the level's geometry. From that point on, I realized I had no desire to continue playing Suicide Squad. Although I could still unlock three more characters, they aren't as appealing as Deathstroke. Repeating the same objectives would feel tedious and exhausting.

Is it worthwhile to return to Suicide Squad a year later? After my sessions, the answer is no. While it is a relief that it can now be played offline so as not to lose all of Rocksteady's effort in the face of a possible server shutdown, the design decisions make me wish this experience were preserved more for nostalgia than enjoyment. The final content update will be released at the end of the month, and I hope Rocksteady can move on and create something better after this failed attempt.