Highlights

  • Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has a clear advantage over Marvel's Avengers in terms of its core gameplay loop.
  • Marvel's Avengers gameplay felt stale with slow character movement and repetitive combat encounters.
  • Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League offers fast-paced gameplay, unique traversal mechanics, combat encounters with unique modifiers, and more interesting boss battles, giving it a stronger foundation overall.

Because of the success of games like Fortnite, many of the biggest video game companies are attempting to get a slice of the live-service pie. Even superhero games are trying to embrace the live service approach, with the likes of Marvel's Avengers and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League being examples of the trend. And while both games have definitely been a bit controversial with their respective fan bases, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has one important thing going for it.

Since Marvel's Avengers and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League are extremely similar premises, it is only natural that players would end up comparing the two. Both games have similar mission structures, mechanics, and approaches to post-launch content. However, they also drastically differ in their gameplay styles. They may both give players the fantasy of being popular comic book characters, but Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League's approach feels a lot more fun and engaging.

Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League x Tower of Babel
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Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Borrows From One of the Best Justice League Comics

The Justice League has a long comic history, and it's only natural for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League to take inspiration from some of it.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Has One Clear Advantage Over Marvel's Avengers

Marvel's Avengers Gameplay Felt Rather Stale

In Marvel's Avengers, players were able to take control of Earth's mightiest heroes. At launch, they could choose between Tony Stark's Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow, and Ms. Marvel. That roster was then further expanded through post-launch content with the likes of Spider-Man, The Winter Soldier, and Black Panther. While all of these characters made for great additions, they also kind of felt a bit boring to play after a while.

One of the biggest faults with Marvel's Avengers' gameplay was that all of these characters felt slow when moving around locations. Navigating open areas mostly just saw players run to their objective, take out foes, and then run somewhere else, with flight in particular feeling like a let down. The traversal mechanics were shaken up a bit based on what character players were controlling, yet no matter what character they chose, the mechanics all felt kind of clunky, and the combat encounters did little to really improve upon that.

It was fun to mess around with each of Marvel's Avengers' characters at first, yet things would quickly become stale. Most combat encounters would often see players just spam the same attacks, wait for other attacks to recharge, and then continue to spam them. There was not much variety, and some characters were simply that interesting to play as, which made for a rather lackluster experience overall. There was still plenty of fun to be had here, but the core gameplay loop was missing something.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League's Fast-Paced Gameplay Can Be a Ton of Fun

Even though Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League may repeat some of those same mistakes, its gameplay feels a bit more engaging. One of the best parts of it comes in the form of the traversal mechanics that Rocksteady has crafted. Each of the characters traverses the world differently based on who they are as a person, with the opening segment teaching players just how that works. Harley Quinn swings from buildings like Spider-Man, Deadshot gets to fly around with a jetpack, Captain Boomerang can play with the speed force, and King Shark has the ability to leap high into the sky. All of these mechanics allow players to zoom across Metropolis extremely fast, with speed being the difference maker.

These traversal mechanics make it a bit more fun to explore Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League's open-world than it was to explore zones in Marvel's Avengers. On top of that, there seems to be slightly more variation in the combat encounters. While many of them often result in players killing the same exact enemies, they challenge players to do it a bit differently each time. Sometimes the only way to take them out is via grenades, while other times they must utilize their attunement abilities, and once in a while, players must focus on only getting critical strikes. Like with traversal, the quickness of combat is what keeps things fun, as clearing HIVEs and battling the same overly durable enemies saw Marvel's Avengers get old quickly.

Additionally, the boss battles are a bit more interesting, mechanics like shield recharge make players think a bit more strategically, and the various enemies force players to utilize an assortment of different attacks if they want any chance at winning. Although the game may seem a lot like Marvel's Avengers, those differences make it feel like a stronger experience in the end.