Highlights
- Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League will have a different gameplay style compared to the Arkham games, focusing on multiplayer shooter elements.
- The absence of comedic conversations between villains' henchmen, a memorable feature from the Arkham games, would be missed in Kill the Justice League.
- The open-world experience in Kill the Justice League may be impacted by the absence of overhearing thugs' conversations, which provided extra depth to the game world in the Arkham series.
Comparisons between Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and the Arkham games that came before it might be redundant, at least in terms of how gameplay will be designed. Clearly the former has adopted the multiplayer shooter trappings of many live-service games that have seen popularity in the last several years, and while it’s debatable that those trends are slowly going out the window, Kill the Justice League now seemingly has to reap the consequences of that monumental design choice. Therefore, fans shouldn’t expect nearly any of Arkham’s gameplay tropes to reappear in Kill the Justice League.
That said, even if gameplay will be starkly opposite to the crime-solving and crime-fighting action-adventure games Rocksteady developed beforehand, that could be fully absolved if Rocksteady has been dedicated to preserving Arkham’s storytelling tropes. This includes having its world-building firmly established with characters connected to one another. Unfortunately, knowing that Brainiac aliens will at least largely compose the enemies players fight in Kill the Justice League, it’ll most likely be omitting the comedic conversations players could eavesdrop on between villains’ henchmen.
Brainiac’s Aliens Won’t Have Arkham Goons’ Talkative Charm
Not much of actual gameplay has been shown from Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and now that it’s been delayed until next year it isn’t surprising that this is the case. Still, it’s difficult then to presume what the gameplay will actually be like from moment to moment outside combat encounters, particularly because Metropolis will hopefully have a sweeping open world to traverse with many activities to indulge in.
Because four characters will be leaping around together at all times whether in solo or co-op play, it would seem inevitable that Task Force X will share banter back and forth and maybe even incessantly in order to fill every silence. Moreover, Amanda Waller will probably be in the player’s ear at all times. But what this means for the game at large will have maybe the most deafening impact on the open-world experience as compared to past Arkham games.
Unless Batman was conversing with an ally or listening to a villain who had somehow managed to hack into his comms, players would naturally overhear thugs’ conversations, most prominently in Arkham City. This was easily one of its most memorable features, and players who paid attention to goons’ unassuming chats could even hear potential foreshadowing hints for Arkham City’s Joker plot twist. Most conversations were trivial, though, and would go unheard if players rushed in to knock these brutes unconscious, but it was a fun detail that players will find as a glaring omission from Kill the Justice League.
Some fans might have been impartial to thugs talking with one another, and maybe some fans even found it irritating to have to overhear them at almost all times when gliding through Arkham City’s industrial penitentiary. Regardless, for fans who enjoyed those conversations or felt like it helped to humanize the otherwise faceless, hulking criminals, this feature will be missed. It is not clear what other denizens or NPCs might be found in Metropolis, but it would be fantastic if Kill the Justice League could replicate that experience in its own way.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League releases on February 2, 2024, for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.