Rocksteady; you guys are alive!?

Suicide is painless

Where have you been? I being serious here, it's been four years and you folk haven't even made a peep out of your studio, and even then it was only to throw this 'Arkham VR' experience and then slink back into the dark. For years I've been hearing the rumours that "This year is it, this is the year when Rocksteady are going to announce 'Court of Owls' or 'Superman: the game'!" And you know what? Every single time it was another trumped up rumour turned lie, that amounted to exactly diddly squat. There were no announcements, no reveals, no communication, no indication that anyone in the studio was still breathing. These people could have all taken a collective vacation to Mars and we'd have no idea. But lo and behold, at long- LONG- last, someone peeped their head into the office window and knocked on the pane to jolt them all awake. Rocksteady are alive, ladies and gentleman, and apparently they still make games too. (Couldn't even confirm THAT in their absence.)

For the uninitiated, Rocksteady are the game studio behind singlehandedly reviving the action adventure genre with a castlevania twist on things and a universally appealing lead character. The Batman Arkham series took a beloved character and bought him to life in a way that no game had done before, allowing people to truly immerse themselves in the world of the world's best fist-fighting cowl-wearing batarang-throwing shark-repellent-bat-spray-owning, detective. At the time of Arkham's launch, the action adventure genre was pretty much in dire straits as the last great game to come out of there was... I dunno... Shadow of the Colossus? Okay, maybe things weren't that sparse. But the focus had shifted to FPS games and how successful one can become by copying everything that Call of Duty was going and waiting for the wheelbarrow of money to show up at your door. Nobody with capital was willing to spend it on something different and unique, which is one of the many reason why Batman Arkham Asylum stood out to a lad like me.

The other reason was simple, because it was fun as heck. The system of combos', counters and special attacks that Arkham introduced was so solid that it easily supported four games without anyone feeling it grow stale. It made you feel powerful, looked incredibly snazzy and cool, and required actual concentration, skill and (in high level scenarios) actually quite a bit of foresight to master. It worked to strike this balance between Batman as an accomplished hand-to-hand martial artist whilst simultaneously a man flush with gadgets and tools, having nearly every tool the player come into contact with also double with a tactile use in combat. And as a result of such a great combat system, every single battle felt fun, the boss fights had great scope to be varied and the titles retained significant replay value.  (Rocksteady didn't even need to significantly change things up as the games went on either. "Just throw in a couple more combos and switch out some tools; done.")

Can any other franchise boast such a well loved basic foundation for their game? Not many, I'll bet. Mass Effect completly switched up it's gameplay from 1 to 2 and then again from 3 to Andromeda (With some funny lore implications to explain it away) Metal Gear reinvented itself several times over the series. (but then those games have been around for 22 years at this point, so that makes sense.) Only shooter games stay so rigid in their controls and gameplay and that's because it's a style that has been detailed so often that everyone reiterates upon themselves. Rocksteady kept their gameplay exciting and fresh with minimal maintenance, and I think that's something worth commending. They did their genre justice, they did Batman fans justice, and I'm sure they made themselves a decent chunk of change in doing so. (And isn't that what it's all about in the end?)

But why are we talking about this, I hear you ask. What could Rocksteady have done to send you down memory lane at mach 5 like this, it must have been something significant! And yes, reader-san, it most certainly was. For out of absolutely freakin' nowhere, Rocksteady decided to tweet out a picture of Superman and a date for a reveal, (which happens to be the date of a prominent DC fan event; the 22nd) confirming that after all this time the game they've been making is Supe- Suicide Squad. What? Yeah, the picture of Superman had the words 'Suicide Squad' scrawled over his headspace. Then why is Superm- has Superman ever been part of the Suicide Squad? Pretty sure he hasn't, that would kind of completely invalidate their entire MO. I mean... okay, but why Superman? I'm going to need some time to work this one out.

Discourse seems split on what this means so far, aside from the fact that it means Rocksteady are making a Suicide Squad game which I think is universally recognised as something that's brilliant and cool. Some say that this was a sly nod to the rather popular rumor that Superman would be their next game, pouring water on that flame whilst going 'Surprise! It was Suicide Squad the whole time.' I'm just going to veto that and point out that there's absolutely no sane studio in the world that would commission a piece of high-quality art work from their team in order to make fun of a rumor, they'd have done a composite meme at best, so that's a garbage theory. What's more believable is that what we are looking at is actually Bizzaro, indicating he'll have a major role in the story either as an antagonist or a member. Seeing the purple hue of the image (a colour that's often thematically linked with Bizzaro and/or evil in general at DC) I can definitely see that, although it does open some questions.

Like why would Amanda Waller think that she could control Bizzaro in a team comprised of supervillains? (Which is the premise of Suicide Squad, by the by. It's a team of captured villains that are 'coerced' into being an expendable special forces unit.) Or, even worse, that her Suicide Squad would even be capable of dealing with a threat as big as Bizzaro? The Suicide Squad is often built with B-tier villains who couldn't hold a story on their own (with some A-tiers in there every now and then in order to bring it all together) so I'm already seeing a little cognitive dissonance in this story. However, I believe the very idea of this theory may hold some water and am already excited about the prospect of getting to actually play Deathstroke. That's right, Deathstroke is almost confirmed to be in this game due to the fact that he was literally the villain whom the project was introduced to when this game was first teased all the way back in Arkham Origins. (They've been working up to this reveal since at least 2013! That's wild.)

There's so much more to speculate about and guess on, but with a full reveal only a couple of weeks away is it even really worth it? Absolutely, but perhaps a little closer to launch so that we can fully enjoy the speculative chaos. I, for one, hope for multiple playable protagonists who can be switched to often and who each have their own side narrative to explore. (Perhaps leading to multiple endings depending on how each story is resolved? Am I asking too much?) I also would like for Suicide Squad to forgo the 'forever become more of an open world' style of the later Arkham games and return to the 'heavily metroidvania' routes of the original. (I love the intimacy that concept provided.) These are just idle speculations, however, tossed into the wind with little more than a dream. It's up to Rocksteady to blow us all away in August 22nd. (Good luck, no pressure, don't screw up. Also, Batman cameo or bust. I've gotta say it!)