Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is a co-op action third-person shooter by Rocksteady and the latest addition to the ever-growing list of superhero games. Read our review to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth buying.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Review Overview
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
 Gameplay Flows Like Honey Great Cast of Characters Knockout Cinematography |
Major Server Issues and Bugs No Offline Mode |
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Overall Score - 78/100
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is a generous shot of rip-roaring good fun in an otherwise grim setting. Stellar graphics, amazing voice acting, and smooth-as-butter gameplay all come together to create a frenetic, heart-pounding skirmish through the ruins of Metropolis. More time in the oven could have done this game some good, however, as server shutdowns and live service woes continue to bog down its quality well into its release.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Story - 5/10
Once you’ve seen a Suicide Squad story, you’ve seen them all. This game’s no different, featuring yet another motley crew of reluctant B-list villains saving the day under constant threat of instant death. I do enjoy the premise of the Justice League turning evil, but I think the game threw one too many plot conveniences in favor of the protagonists for it to be believable. Capping off its list of offenses is how it messed up the continuity of the Arkham series and downright disrespected Kevin Conroy's last voice appearance as the caped crusader. It’s still a fun story to behold, though – one I’d appreciate as much if it were used in a movie.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Gameplay - 10/10
Free-running with superpowers is only fun if the game expands upon the idea without losing the momentum that made it alluring in the first place. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League manages to do so by implementing counter moves and score multipliers in its core gameplay, encouraging movement and momentum over careful and deliberate planning. You can get lost in the fray and still contribute to your group's victory; now that's what I call order in chaos!
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Visuals - 10/10
This game looks breathtaking in every respect, and I mean that in the most literal sense of the word. Everything from the game’s hyperrealistic graphics to its amazing character design stands as a testament to its quality and polish. If you’re looking for the quintessential Suicide Squad experience, don’t reach for a movie, reach for a copy of this game ASAP!
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Audio - 10/10
Pound for pound, I’d say this game doesn’t have the best soundtrack when compared to the industry’s finest. That being said, the game more than makes up for it through the sheer mastery of its musical direction and the ovation-worthy performances of its voice actors. With VAs like Tara Strong and Kevin Conroy bolstering its cast, it’s no wonder that this game earned a great score for its audio.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Value for Money - 4/10
Coming in at a bank-breaking $70, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is a hefty game in price and content. This isn’t a game you can just pick up for fun; you’ll have to sink your teeth into it to get your money’s worth. Though the game has enough content to justify its price, its strict adherence to the live service model and lack of offline play tanks its value hard. I’d also steer clear of the game’s Digital Deluxe Edition completely, as it costs nearly $100 and is worth nowhere near that much.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Review: Complete and Utter Chaos
Chaos. That’s this game in one word. You’ll understand why as we continue with this review, but take my word for it for now: this game is complete and utter chaos in more ways than one.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is a high-intensity third-person shooter where you play as a member of the titular squad of misfits in their (non-consensual) quest to save the world against the Justice League. Yeah, you read that right, The Justice League are the bad guys in this game, and not even in a "they got in my way" kind of situation. Superman, The Flash, Green Lantern, and Batman have all fallen to Brainiac’s brainwashing and are now assisting in his attempts to level Metropolis. You’re a lowly B-list villain, but if you don’t kill the Justice League, boom goes the C4 embedded in your brain. With a premise like that, you can only imagine how chaotic and frenetic the gameplay must be, and – let me tell you – those words don’t do this game justice.
When I say high-intensity, I mean high-intensity. I’m talking about pitched firefights across the Metropolitan skyline; heated chopper chases in the devastated streets of a ruined city; endless dashes, rappels, and jetpack joyrides through rapid gunfire; all while random things blow up in the background. This is a game where you shoot fast and shoot hard. You leave the planning to the chumps back in the Justice League; everyone in the Suicide Squad just jumps in headfirst and prays for the best. Do you want to know the best part about all this chaos? It. Freaking. Works.
Team-based shooters usually punish this kind of behavior by reducing any gung-ho squad member into pink mist the moment they step a toe out of line—not here, though. While teamwork is effective and encouraged, you can literally just start blasting, rappelling, and whipping bad guys back and forth, and you’d still be contributing to the team. Getting stuck in fights isn’t a downside because killing enemies and juggling skills will nab you style points like in Devil May Cry. Certain abilities only trigger when you’re on a high streak, so keep shooting and keep jumping because your lives depend on it.
Of course, this kind of intense third-person gameplay is only bearable if the game runs smoothly and looks like it’s worth its price. Spoiler alert: This game ticks both boxes in that regard. You wouldn’t catch me trying to traverse a post-cataclysm Metropolis if the swinging, teleporting, jetpacking, and rappelling mechanics ran as well as Barbara Gordon. I wouldn’t be caught dead trying to do any of that either if the game looked like Spider-Man for the PS1.
Luckily for me, the game’s combat flows like honey, and its visuals are out of this world—standard fair as far as Rocksteady's Arkhamverse is concerned. Everything looks so good that I'm having difficulty finding the best shots to use for the review, but hey, that’s Unreal Engine 5 for you.
I’ve praised the game’s visuals enough; what about its audio? If the name Kevin Conroy doesn’t mean anything to you, then you’re missing out on a major DC Easter egg. He was THE voice of Batman in the same way that Mark Hammil was THE voice of Joker. This game features his last performance before he died in 2022, though he isn’t the only voice-acting juggernaut to grace the squad. Tara Strong and Jason Isaacs play Harley Quinn and Brainiac, respectively. With a VA cast of this pedigree, it’s no wonder that this game’s voice acting is S-tier. You really can’t get any better than this.
Circling back to the game’s narrative, it’s actually pretty good, but not without its downsides. Even in their comic runs, Suicide Squad stories almost always start and end the same. A ragtag group of mildly capable villains is enlisted by Amanda Waller to do something no do-gooder could accomplish. They’re all implanted with a failsafe should they try to escape (as they often do), shenanigans ensue, King Shark is a shark, and a few heads get popped. All of that is present in the game’s story mode as well, though it does spice things up a bit with the inclusion of a brainwashed Justice League as antagonists.
I don’t mind too much that the story isn’t completely original. I’m actually quite thankful that it’s based on established Suicide Squad lore. What bothers me is the dissonance between the game’s narrative and mechanical pacing. One second, you’re painting Metropolis red with headshots and sundering gunfire; the next, you’re in a slow, drawn-out cutscene. It isn’t always so bad, though I wish it was more consistent. But no, we're not done, we are yet to tackle the game's biggest offense in terms of narrative: continuity.
As confirmed by Rocksteady's Creative Director Sefton Hill, this game is supposed to be set 5 years after the last entry in the acclaimed Arkhamverse, Arkham Knight. This opens a whole can of problems with the game's continuity, including swapped character races, dead characters being alive again, and certain characters having never met each other despite having done so in the previous games. Worst of all —and this is major spoiler territory, so reader beware—we are expected to believe that the very same Batman that patrolled and oversaw all of Arkham in the previous game, the same one man arsenal who could stand toe-to-toe against anything the city could throw at him, could be killed so unceremoniously with a headshot on park bench. I'm all about drama, but that's a bit farfetched, don't you think?
But that’s about it for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. It’s a fun, blood-pumping title that’ll have you sweating in no time flat. Sure, its story could benefit from a few pacing adjustments, but it’s true to the Suicide Squad premise; and I think that warrants some merit. The game presents its visuals and audio well through sheer quality, enhancing an already sturdy foundation for a great game. I’ve had my butt handed to me by Brainiac’s horde so many times already, yet I keep coming back for more. What can I say? I’m just a sucker for pain.
Pros of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League
| Things Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Got Right |
|---|
|
Gameplay Flows Like Honey Great Cast of Characters Knockout Cinematography |
Gameplay Flows Like Honey
Order in chaos is a hard concept to nail down, but this game manages to do so with its gameplay. I’ve talked ad nauseam about this game’s chaotic gameplay loop, but I wish to highlight just how fluid the mechanics work together to preserve the momentum of every swing, shot, and takedown. Movement in this game is survival. You don’t have a lot of health, and you don’t have a lot of time. You can’t just camp in a corner and take potshots because the enemies can and will always outflank you. But how can you aim in all this madness?
You don’t. You pick one of many things to do depending on your current situation and carry on. Enemy charging up a shot? Counter-shoot at them for massive damage. Chopper too high up? Teleport next to it and unleash hell. Low on shields? Shoot someone’s legs and melee them to regain shields. All these decisions will be made in a split second, and it’s this plethora of options that lets you preserve your momentum.
The flow that you can achieve in a firefight is downright euphoric at times, enhanced further by skills that ramp with your kill streak. Achieving Zen in the middle of a rampage is such a curious thought, yet here we are, cutting a mean streak down Main Street.
Great Cast of Characters
The Suicide Squad is much larger than the 4-man team shown in the game, as both the movies and comics would attest. Though they had the opportunity to have a much larger cast than this, I appreciate that Rocksteady chose to keep it somewhat grounded by only having the main four members. These four showed great chemistry throughout the game’s story, amplified greatly by the performances of each character’s respective VA. If you’re looking for a Suicide Squad experience to cleanse your palate after watching its atrocious movie adaptation, give this game a shot.
Knockout Cinematography
This game has a lot of cutscenes, I must admit, yet I never grow tired of watching them. Skipping is an option, of course, but I never felt compelled to do it. Something about the game’s cutscenes enthralled me enough to keep watching long past what my attention span would usually allow. I like to think it’s because of the game’s graphics – which is also great, might I add – but I realized eventually that the game has amazing cinematography.
Everything from the sweeping landscape shots to the character close-ups makes this game’s cutscenes look like clips from a movie. It’s all framed so expertly that I almost feel bad that it had to end. I love this game’s gameplay, so tearing me away from it through sheer cinematography alone is an astounding feat.
Cons of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League
| Things That Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Can Improve |
|---|
|
Major Server Issues and Bugs No Offline Mode |
Major Server Issues and Bugs
I was on the edge of my seat for this game’s release, watching and waiting for that clock to run down so I could get my hands on some Suicide Squad goodness. It was in vain, however, as the game’s servers were temporarily shut down shortly after release due to a game-breaking bug. It took a few hours to patch, but the servers were up and running before long. That would be it if I knew that this would not happen again, but it did.
Over the course of 6 hours, the servers were shut down 2 additional times before finally being left open after the bug was allegedly fixed. Again, I’d leave it at that, but minor bugs still littered the game itself. Shortly after starting, I encountered a bug that forced my character to walk forward whenever my analog stick was in a neutral position. This ruined my aim severely and I had to restart the game to fix it.
Although I am aware that even the best games aren’t free from bugs, I feel as if something as glaring as the one I encountered should have been addressed in QA well before release.
No Offline Mode
Yeah, you read that right. Despite being completely playable as a single-player game, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has no offline mode. This means that if the servers fall for any reason, you won’t just lose matchmaking and multiplayer; you’re losing access to the entire game. Case in point: the aforementioned incident where early access players couldn’t play the game because the servers were taken down for maintenance. Rocksteady better get this game an offline mode, and it better get it fast.
Is Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Worth It?
Not at the Moment, But it Could Be
It bothers me greatly to say that this game isn't worth its price because...well...I could argue that it is. The voice acting, the graphics, the gameplay; they all scream quality and I genuinely had a great time playing. What really tanks this game's value is the fact that for $70 ($100 for the Digital Deluxe Edition) you're not getting an offline mode. You remain at the mercy of WB's fickle servers even if you're playing through the game's story by yourself. For a game of this price, you should darn well be able to play through it offline, period.
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| $69.99 | ||||||||
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Overview & Premise
Just your luck. The Justice League’s been taken over by some cyborg alien and now you have a bomb in your head. I hope you weren’t planning on living a long life, cause you’re part of the squad now.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League’s story is exactly as the title describes. Members of the Justice League have been taken over by Brainiac and it is up to you and your band of misfits to put a stop to it. You’re no match for any of them, however, so you’re going to need to suit up and get armed through various missions until you can take them on. So what do you say, squaddie? Up for a round against Superman?
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League FAQ
How Can I Get a Refund for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League?
The process is different depending on which platform you're playing on. If you're playing the game on Steam, you can follow the instructions and policies on Steam's refund policy page. If you're playing on Xbox, you'll have to explore your purchase on your Microsoft Account page.
There's no guarantee that either platform will provide blanket refunds after you've played a purchased game for a certain amount of time, although both platforms have historically opened up refund reviews in light of extenuating circumstances.
When Will Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Get an Offline Mode?
Although the game didn’t come with an offline mode at launch, the game’s developers have confirmed that an Offline Story Mode will be available as an update sometime in 2024.
Is Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Connected to the Batman: Arkham Series?
Yes. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League picks up 5 years after the events of Batman: Arkham Knight.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Product Information
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| Title | SUICIDE SQUAD: KILL THE JUSTICE LEAGUE |
|---|---|
| Release Date | February 2, 2024 |
| Developer | Rocksteady Studios |
| Publisher | Warner Bros. Games |
| Supported Platforms | PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S |
| Genre | Shooter, Action-adventure, RPG |
| Number of Players | Single Player (1), Online Multiplayer (2-4) |
| ESRB Rating | M |
| Official Website | Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Website |
