Suicide Squad Developer Explains Why It Didn’t Make a Justice League Game

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and Batman Arkham series developer Rocksteady Studios has explained why it didn’t make a straight up Justice League game. In 2009, Rocksteady Studios changed everyone’s view of superhero games forever. While there had been some good superhero games (primarily with Spider-Man), there was nothing like Batman: Arkham Asylum prior to its release. The ante was upped in the sequels and it set the tone for future superhero games, showing that if you invest time, money, and effort into these licensed games, it can have incredible results. There was no need for movie tie-in games anymore, you could get away with just making a good superhero game and nothing more. After Rocksteady concluded its Batman trilogy, fans hoped to see other DC characters get a similar treatment.

Almost a decade later… and that just hasn’t happened. There’s a Wonder Woman game in the works, but that’s about all we’ve got. Fans hoped for a Justice League game, but instead, Rocksteady did the polar opposite and made a Suicide Squad game where you, as the name implies, try to kill the Justice League. We spoke with Rocksteady Studios Production Manager Jack Hackett and Advanced Combat Designer Noel Chamberlain at a recent preview event for the game and asked why they opted to go this route instead of a traditional Justice League video game.

On one hand, Rocksteady believed it was simply a much more interesting premise to have the Justice League be the game’s antagonists and let you play as totally different characters.

“At the core of Rocksteady’s values is we want something really narrative driven, and we’re really story orientated,” said Chamberlain. “So, we look at what’s going to be the most interesting and then add on things like that like having four very unique protagonists. And again, I think fans expect Rocksteady to do something slightly different, and having you have to fight the Justice League and overcome this insurmountable challenge as a player and as a character in the story is really interesting, I think it’s really exciting for players to experience. I think once players play it, they’ll know why this is our choice for the game.”  

It also allowed Rocksteady the opportunity to make something that was unexpected and exciting for everyone involved.

“I think the Justice League are the perfect antagonists because they’re everything that the Squad is not,” said Hackett. “I think that contrast, and then flipping the good and evil, both sides are begrudgingly on the wrong side. The Squad are evil, and they’re being forced to be good, and the League end up being forced to be bad. That’s just a fun, compelling narrative. You don’t want to just create what people are expecting, because then they will never be surprised by what you’ve made, and we’ve made something we thought would be surprising, would be exciting. Something that excited us to make it.”

It also made more sense for the Suicide Squad to lead the game due to the multiplayer elements. Hackett noted that multiplayer games with friends inherently means messing with and screwing over your pals, which wouldn’t make sense for a Justice League game, but it does for the Suicide Squad.

“I think the kind of protagonist-antagonist structure of this game we went with what compelled us,” said Hackett. “We thought the Suicide Squad made compelling protagonists because they make sense in a multiplayer game. That’s one of the fundamental reasons I really like them for this. When I’m playing online with my friends, I like to mess with them. I like to compete with them. I like to make fun of them. I like to taunt them, and if that makes sense, when you’re playing online as the squad, you can almost sort of role play as the squad, and that’s really entertaining. They can do silly emotes, and they can mess with each other, and they can leave each other hanging for high-fives and send taunts to the other players. I think that’s a fun atmosphere to let players inhabit in a comic book world – play with their friends, have fun, poke fun at each other, while still living authentically in that comic book world and feeling like you’re inhabiting it.”

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is scheduled to release on February 2nd.