Again with the Suicide Squad...

 The crystal ball didn't lie.

I've been trying to be a lot more positive this time of year. Does it show? I don't know, but I want to see the silver lining clutching to the edge of every rain-cloud, or some such nonsense. (Seriously, what kind of cloud has a silver lining? What kind of visual delusions do I have to be under to perceive mineral silver glittering in the sky?) That is getting very hard with the more we see of one game that I had quite a lot of excitement for once upon a time. One game that was the much anticipated successor to the beloved Arkham Batman franchise, and which was going to remind the super hero genre of games how to do it right after two prominent live service failures- well, I guess we can't call 'Gotham Knights' a 'live service' can we? It was just a game which had it's online live service elements haphazardly gutted at the last moment and acted like it never happened so we could all be shocked in five years time when the developers reveal that secret during a behind-the-scenes documentary. (I think we may be a bit ahead of schedule on that one.)

We knew this was coming ever since the leak of the new Rocksteady Suicide Squad game a few weeks back hit 4Chan and everyone's spine shivered with a cold dread: gear qualities, item scores, lobbies, Battle Passes; everything terrible about modern gaming crystallised into one truly cursed genre. I wouldn't mind so much if the Live Service genre knew how to stay in it's lane, but nowadays we're seeing every other game adopt these pitifully redundant and under-designed gear equip systems that drip with miniscule effects and stat buffs that have no tangible effect on a gameplay model not at all built to cater for them. For all of it's success', even Hogwarts Legacy has a haphazard Gear score system! And guess what; it's totally inconsequential meaningless trash where all you do is pick the gear which makes the 'gear number' get bigger. Not that you even notice the improvement, because you never do in these games. It's a fundamental design principal adopted by so many game designers that have no clue what made it work in the first place.

Even if everything else about Suicide Squad was perfectly spot-on for a co-op superhero/villain power fantasy; and that's looking like a very questionable hypothetical right now, the gear scores alone would be little more than excess fat ontop of the package. RPGs pioneered the concept of incremental gear power growth in order to create a sense of physical progression beyond levelling and abilities, but even then the best RPGs of yesteryear knew how to temper the amount of loot and gear available in order to keep new pieces feeling relevant and special. Action RPGs changed up that balance to shower players in loot, but presented the collection and modification of loot as an intrinsic gameplay mechanic. By the endgame for those ARPGs, those tiny stat increases mean all the difference in the world and that's what makes the gear grinding loop of those games feel rewarding. Live Services have always struggled to reach that level of synergy, from their very inception to now; to the point where even at a mere glance the public feels utterly familiar with the oncoming systemic disconnect without having ever picked up a controller. And why would they need to? Nuance has been lacking from the start.

But again, the gear system is just the cherry ontop of the cake. The fact is that Suicide Squad Kills the Justice League was pitched as a co-op team based supervillian game where every character played uniquely according to their own abilities and move-sets, creating a collaborative smorgasbord of experiences to share between you and your three friends. If that is indeed the case, why are Rocksteadr struggling to display that uniqueness? In the most recent gameplay trailer we've been witness to supercuts of all 4 protagonists swinging through the air with floaty, weightless abandon firing boring guns at glowing purple weak points in what almost feels like a reskin of Anthem. Why am I getting Anthem vibes when watching a trailer for Suicide Squad? That is absolutely not what I should be taking away from this game during the home stretch of marketing! Btu at least we've still got those great Arkham-level cutscenes to propel a hopefully compelling story, right? Well... actually, maybe we don't...

Because get this, unlike Gotham Knights; Suicide Squad is a live service through and through. (Except the team refuse to come out and say it, probably because they're embarrassed to admit it out loud. Always a great sign for how much everyone believes in the dream, no?) We already have confirmation that the team is already going to support this game post launch with a battle pass, probably some more cosmetics and... new characters? Wait a second... so how can we possibly expect a well rounded narrative touching on the four player characters... if they can be easily swapped in with upcoming DLC characters? This is sounding less and less like a Rocksteady Superhero game and more like a Square Enix Superhero title as we go on.

What seems to have astounded pretty much everyone up until this point is the fact that almost universally the public appears settled on the fact that this live service approach doesn't appear to work with these superhero properties. And yet we keep receiving them. This piece-meal 'the story is never quite over' style of presenting the narrative has, historically, only really had a shot in RPG games with custom generated characters that players can place their theoretical psyche within and carry on across countless stories. Actual characters have a bit more nuance and wear to them, even when they're bullet fodder in the Suicide Squad. Although, even then that's no guarantee with a genre as prone to failure as this one. Anyone remember 'Babylon's Fall'? Like... anyone at all?

And I know the hatred isn't completely universal. There are people who love the idea of a co-op superhero game that must find the prospect of a continuously developed one just tantalising. I've also heard scattered praise for the character movement which I personally do not echo. I agree that it looks smooth animation-wise, but without hands-on I think it's impossible to say whether float-guiding whilst shooting is any sort of fun. I didn't particularly think Anthem's iteration of that exact style was all that long lasting and effective. I just wonder how it is that Warner Bros. can justify sinking so many years of development through a beloved single-player studio to create a game in a genre tailor-designed to alienate all single player lovers. It seems like a frankly backwards philosophy, which only leaves me confused.

I do know that the Rocksteady Team originally had another Batman game lined up, which was going to feature a playable adult Damian Wayne and a much older mentor Batman; for which I will be forever mournful we never got. Rumours are bubbling now that Rocksteady had actually moved on to that Superman game everyone claimed they were making all of these years, only Warner Bros. forcibly pulled them off that project and moved them to this Live Service mess of a project instead. Honestly, that makes a lot of sense- but also sounds like too neat and tidy of a story to be the whole picture, like the kind of narrative a disgruntled former fan would concoct in their morose musings. Personally I hope the game beats the odds and becomes that runaway hit Warner Bros. must be desperate for at this point, but either way I'm going to be parting ways with one of the most beloved action adventure game developers that used to be around so the well wishes are bittersweet to taste.