Rocksteady Studios’ Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League obtained a shot within the arm Thursday with the discharge of its first season, which notably brings the Joker again to the franchise’s Arkhamverse. Joker is a newly playable character, plucked from an alternate-reality Elseworld, who joins the Suicide Squad on their mission to kill a bunch of alternate-reality Braniacs.
Gamers who’ve caught with Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League for the previous two months and at the moment are getting their first style of Rocksteady’s DLC plans don’t appear too proud of how the Joker has rolled out. Unlocking him requires extra of the identical grind that Kill the Justice League has been criticized for, and there’s little or no new narratively to resume curiosity within the recreation, gamers say.
Kill the Justice League’s Joker is free to amass, although gamers can spend a premium foreign money often called Luthor Cash to unlock him quicker. For gamers who don’t wish to pay, they’ll have to play the sport’s repetitive missions for a pair hours to unlock Joker. By doing so, they get a brand new playable character with a brand new expertise tree to fill out and Joker’s distinctive type of traversal. In motion, Joker appears to be like fairly enjoyable.
However story-wise, gamers get solely an animated intro explaining Joker’s world and Brainiac’s invasion, and a cutscene introducing him to Amanda Waller’s Activity Power X. There’s a bit extra background tucked into the Batman Expertise interactive exhibition in Metropolis, which is fascinating, however based mostly on heated participant response to the brand new additions, it’s not sufficient to fulfill Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League followers.
Suggestions from gamers on Steam and the sport’s subreddit has been swift and largely offended. Gamers are complaining about having to grind new ranges, known as Worry episode rank, and repeat a boss combat. As within the unique recreation, gamers must defeat a model of Brainiac based mostly on a pre-existing boss; as an alternative of preventing a model of Brainiac mimicking the Flash, this time they’ll face a Brainiac who makes use of Inexperienced Lantern’s boss mechanics. It’s extra repetition in a recreation already notorious for its monotonous duties.
Season 1 additionally provides a cosmetically modified model of Metropolis, one which’s corrupted with nice-looking Joker imagery. However these new additions, new Incursions missions, cosmetics, and equipment merely aren’t sufficient for gamers to come back round to Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League’s choices.
“It’s completely truthful to say that this season was make or break for this recreation,” one participant on the sport’s subreddit complained. “I hoped for some new missions or some additions to the story [but] as an alternative it’s simply added a brand new character you both grind for or purchase and nothing extra, no story, no new missions, no new content material, there’s nothing totally different moreover new Riddler crap and a few reskinned buildings. I actually needed this recreation to do effectively and I believed it might however this was simply disappointing and possibly killed it.”
“So Rocksteady desires us to grind the identical previous missions, get bored of all of them over once more, only for the privilege of experiencing the primary purpose individuals got here again (the Joker), and proceed grinding those self same missions you simply obtained bored of once more,” mentioned one other. “Yeah no thanks.”
A part of this offended knee-jerk response appears to be that these are the gamers who’ve liked Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League probably the most — or no less than those that have caught with it longer than the remaining — and so they wish to see Rocksteady succeed with it. These gamers need the opposite three promised playable characters to come back out, and for the sport’s story to develop. However tepid response to the sport and low participant counts spell doom for Kill the Justice League as a long-supported live-service recreation. Joker’s launch and season 1’s content material choices don’t encourage confidence. (On Steam no less than, the sport has seen an uptick in gamers, with 1000’s of concurrent customers enjoying the PC model in comparison with a whole lot earlier this week.)
There’s nonetheless extra coming in season 1, nevertheless. Rocksteady describes this week’s launch as half one in every of a two-episode season. Nonetheless to come back are new weapons impressed by villains like Two-Face, Reverse Flash, and Black Manta, in addition to new infused enemy varieties, and one other Brainiac battle, this one modeled after the primary recreation’s Superman boss combat. Whether or not any of that’s obtained extra warmly by Suicide Squad followers stays to be seen. However there’s little purpose to be hopeful.
