Suicide Squad Impresses the audience

 Okay, I'm on board now.

Of all the upcoming games that are must-haves for little ol' me, one I've been somewhat sleeping on when it comes to actual research and coverage is 'Suicide Squad kills the Justice League', despite my love for the Arkham series and all branches of it. I think my disinterest stemmed from the whole Suicide Squad concept which I felt was a little sullied by the first film, although somewhat redeemed in the sequel, reboot thing. But if I'm being honest with you, the reason I fast tracked talking anything I could about a DC related project was because I'd finally gotten around to watching James Gunn's 'Peacemaker'. Good god, I needed that show in my life. With Boba Fett being mostly lacklustre and my faith in TV dwindling, 'Peacemaker' swooped in to pick me back up and then push me in a puddle so it could laugh at me. I adore that freakin' show, I think John Cena is brilliant in it and though Peacemaker won't be appearing in the Suicide Squad game, he'll make for a decent enough segueway.

So for those of you who don't know, this game is going to be one of the first big AAA expansions onto the world established by the stellar Batman Arkham series, finally touching on the other big heroes of the DC universe. (Although through the lens of villains, obviously.) That means were going to see a Justice League without Batman in it, given that's he's currently totally dead and not at all faking it in order to continue working from the shadows without putting his close loved ones at risk now that his identity is out there, but still a story keeping with the incredibly solid and cohesive world that the Rocksteady studios managed to scavenge out of several decades worth of disparate comic book stories. It's hardly going to blow any minds if I tell you that I long for this sort of game, more Arkham universe stuff is pretty much my favourite vector into the DC comicverse. (Although if the HBO Max TV shows are all made to the standard that Peacmaker is, maybe I'll start expanding my horizons there.)

Suicide Squad Kills the Justice League isn't just going to play like Arkham did, however, and that's something we finally had proven to us with the gameplay reveal event we received during the Game Awards. What we have seems to be a much more free-form style of third person action combat where mobility and action comes together in a manner that at least looks super satisfying. We already know that every single member of the Squad is going to play differently, but if this trailer has done a good job of teasing it then it looks like they're going to feel significantly different just to traverse around with, which is a supremely good job from the design team if true. Harley Quinn seems to grapple onto a bat glider (Which implies this is the version of Harley who has teamed up with the Bat family in some way. Or whom is a decent thief) allowing her to swing around like a much heavier version of Spiderman. King Shark can run up buildings like the Hulk and throw himself as a deadly spinning object at enemies. Deadshot has a jetpack and a gun, so with him I guess we're pretty much playing Anthem, and Captain Boomerang appeared to have some sort of slippery-looking speed boots that he can rush around with. (Yeah, Boomerang looked the least interesting so far.)

Personally I am stunned and very impressed with just how vastly different this looks to what the team were doing with Batman, with the way that we see characters swing into and out of melee range with acrobatic zeal, marrying shooter and brawler in such a neat way. I have no doubt that shooting will be the main focus a lot of the time, but if the team have found a way to force us into some tight one-on-one bat-to-alien encounters for certain types of enemies, this might be a step up even from what the best Arkham combat sections wanted from us. Additionally, this vast array of movement options really makes the open world feel more like a free sandbox than we've seen from Rocksteady in the past. Gone are the instanced-feeling rooftop fights wherein enemies refused to leave their little battle area and would just pointedly forget about Bruce if he so much as slightly left their elevation level. Braniac's troops scale buildings, leap gaps in single bounds, and just keep the action mobile at all times, which I only imagine makes it all the more satisfying to jump from rooftop-to-rooftop squashing them like bugs. The game looks like a blast!

What we haven't seen any of in this trailer, and I see this as a real surprise, is the way that all of this comes together in the teamwork the game seems to promote. We already know that this is going to be the first Arkham universe game to support co-operative play, with each player taking up a different member of Task Force X, but we've yet to see, or even be told, what the benefit will be of playing in a team. Are there going to be powers and abilities that work best in unison? Will King Shark make for good crowd control moves whilst Deadshot cleans up with aggressive DPS? Is there going to be any form of group combo moves to encourage people to fight side-by-side rather than just zooming off to their own corners of the map and going on minion killing competitions like Gimli and Legolas?  Funnily enough, the very context of the Suicide Squad means that either eventuality, teamwork or asynchronous cooperation, would fit the style of the narrative just fine; I just want to know what to expect.

But right now the team seems focused in proving to us that the game can work fine for their established demographic, single players, which suits a lonely guy like me just fine. Although as an expansion on that point, we haven't actually seen any two Suicide Squad members on the screen at the same time in gameplay yet. (With the potential exception of one shot where King Shark is using his turret and we see some extra bullets that look like they might have come from off-screen, but it's hard to confirm) It makes me a bit confused. Are we actually going to be able to fight as a team outside of Co-op play, or is single player going to be exercise in: 'pick the one operative who's going to handle this objective entirely by themselves'? Honestly, the vibe I'm picking up right now makes this game almost not feel like an open world game at all, but rather like some sort of mission based objective regurgitator, although apparently there is going to be openness in the game according to reports. So maybe that just doesn't expand to include teammate AI? Or Rocksteady just aren't ready to show it off yet? (I'd imagine programming helpful Co-op AI that intelligently operates such a wide array of movement options is anything but easy.)

From here on out the big focus that I think we all want to see, although which I wouldn't at all be upset if it isn't touched on until the official launch, is how the boss fights are going to play out. Rocksteady have set themselves a tough precedent with some of the great boss fights from the Arkham series, such as both Mister Freeze fights, Origin's Deathstroke duel, Ra's Al Ghul's mindtrip, Killer Croc's sewer stealth mission and Poison Ivy's plant titan whilst disappointing us with some iconically bad boss fights too, Deathstoke's Arkham Knight fight, Arkham Knight's own fight and whatever that Joker thing was supposed to be at the end of Asylum. Bringing the bulk of the mainline Justice League as boss fights is going to be it's own brand of challenging, with inevitable highs and lows, but I hope for at least one series iconic battle akin to the level of Mister Freeze. And let me just put in my bet right now that the Superman fight is going to suck. I just feel it in my skin.

I don't think I've always been onboard with the Suicide Squad game, a part of me think it's too ambitious to work and another part is just scared of Rocksteady sullying the good name of the Arkham games, but after seeing this gameplay I feel somewhat reassured. It looks a lot of fun, honestly, and though I suspect the world isn't going to be as fleshed out and dripping with detail, references and mood as the Arkham games enjoyed, there's nothing inherently lacking in what I've glimpsed at so far. Whatsmore, and this may be getting ahead of myself, I see this as fertile ground for expansion in the future because with this approach to character design any DLC character is going to significantly change up how it feels to play the game in a manner similar to how Borderland 2 used to function; making any theoretical DLC characters absolute must-buys. Am I saying this to try and will-into-existence a John Cena voiced, James Gunn written, Peacemaker DLC? Yes, yes- please god, yes.