If there’s a sense of simmering injustice at Rocksteady Studios, it’s perhaps comprehensible. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is replete with fleeting moments of brilliance: humor, style, expression, and that distinctive rhythmic, flow-state approach to combat. Undoubtedly – as is seldom the case with any video game – its team was exceptionally committed to making it as excellent as possible. However, for every high point, there’s a corresponding, jarring low point. When seeking a cause, it’s challenging to look beyond the ambitions that this game has been tasked to handle.
Simultaneously, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League must be a live service game that justifies its extraordinary, nearly nine-year development period following 2015’s Batman: Arkham Knight, along with the support of those live services beyond its launch. It must feature multiple main characters towards whom not one, but two distinct Hollywood films – plus Birds of Prey – have failed to generate any sort of public goodwill (or even mild interest). And it must fulfill, or at least seem to fulfill, its promise of turning antagonists into and subsequently eliminating the Justice League – a group of beloved, decades-old icons that have, in part, earned their iconic status by not being killed. (And which come with a subset of fans – with emphasis on the subset – known to be as toxic as they are devoted). Altogether, it means the question that arose for most observers the moment Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League was revealed in 2020 remains the same now, and even well into its never-ending grind of an endgame: Why?
Thus, the sense of injustice: with all that to attempt and achieve, Rocksteady has performed an exceptionally commendable job. The problem is that in this case, an exceptional job equates to a game that fluctuates wildly between brilliance and mediocrity, and ultimately lands precisely in the middle of the spectrum. By Rocksteady’s standards, being average is a catastrophe. And setting up a studio with that pedigree, that remarkable ability to capture every aspect of a character, and that genuine dedication to its craft, only to fail in this manner is as close as video games can come to an act of cultural vandalism.
For those who haven’t perused the comics and also managed to evade those Hollywood attempts, the premise of the Suicide Squad is straightforward. Four moderately-ranked villains, Deadshot, King Shark, Captain Boomerang, and Harley Quinn, are liberated from prison by Commander Waller, the head of a shadowy organization called ARGUS. Waller injects a remotely-activated bomb into the back of each of their heads, and now this group, officially named Task Force X, must do whatever they are commanded. In this instance, that means defeating a highly menacing invasion by the supervillain Brainiac, who has also managed to take control of most of the Justice League – the Flash, Green Lantern, Batman, and Superman, but not Wonder Woman – through mind control.
This sets the stage for a lot of neon spray paint, subversive wisecracks, and banter among the villains. Despite being fully prepared for a playable XD emoticon, Suicide Squad is genuinely rather amusing – in many ways, it’s an action-comedy, carried more by the little under-the-breath quips and what could be described as industry-leading combat barks than its overt story. The squad members quickly transition from annoying oddballs to endearing oddballs (a reference made in a fourth-wall-breaking manner by King Shark partway through, as is the case with almost all story developments here). Shark is somewhat close to the comedic literalness of Drax, but compensates with some strong puns and a few clever put-downs. Boomerang never transcends the role of comic relief but rarely needs to, with a multitude of jokes thrown out, and just enough of them landing. Harley Quinn is Harley Quinn, enigmatic, impulsive, and slightly melancholic. And Deadshot, while at times being a bit too close to a talking character sheet – motivated by: revenge; scared of: confined spaces – still functions well as the straight-man foil to the rest.
