Before gameplay for Rocksteady’sSuicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leaguewas even revealed, the game immediately wrought comparison to the developer’sBatman: Arkhamseries. This is not unfounded, however, since it was confirmed thatSuicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leaguetakes place in the same canon, but as a four-player action shooter, it was undoubtedly going to be different from anything DC-related that Rocksteady has developed.
Gameplay has now been shared forSuicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, just before it was hit with a delay that haspushed its release window to sometime in 2023. This gameplay depicted hordes of purple Brainiac aliens and stylish combat from Harley Quinn, Deadshot, Captain Boomerang, and King Shark. In this brief showcase of gameplay,Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leagueshares similarities with Insomniac’sSunset Overdrive. Further, while it has no obligation to copyGotham Knights, it will hopefully take inspiration fromSunset Overdrive’s traversal ideas instead.
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Gotham Knights’ Open-World Traversal Doesn’t Look the Best
Gotham Knightsis also a much different game than its spiritual predecessors, but it still evokes reasonable comparison due to how muchBatman: ArkhamDNA is still embedded in its gameplay.Gotham KnightsandSuicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leagueare only connected through their overarching DC mythology, but are completely unrelated otherwise besides the fact that they both feature four playable protagonists in an open world.
Gotham Knights’ co-op action-adventure features RPG mechanics with a crafting system and traversal throughout its open world, both of which have been chiefly criticized since their reveal inGotham Knights’ Nightwing and Red Hood gameplay walkthrough.Gotham Knights’ combat was criticized for how weightless and dogged it looked, while its traversal was criticized for lacking ingenuity in how players will actively be getting to their destinations in Gotham City’s open world.
Indeed, characters have ubiquitous access to grapple guns and Batcycles, but they also have traversal methods unique to them. Nightwing’s Flying Trapeze glider, for example, has been compared toFortnite’s glider, effortlessly and blandly floating him around in midair; moreover, Red Hood’s Mystical Leap allows him to leap repeatedly in midair without having to touch down anywhere, which also seems less interesting or engaging than grappel-boosting or simply riding the Batcycle.
Not all of these characters have capes they can glide with, but the traversal methods that have been decided upon appear less exciting or intriguing to use on a moment-to-moment basis in gameplay and may make getting around Gotham more tedious as a result. That said,Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leagueneeds to eschew any inclination to provide its own protagonists with similar traversal methods, and instead take another page out ofSunset Overdrive, which it already looks inherently inspired by.
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Sunset Overdriveprides itself on incredibly fluid and stylistic traversal, whether players are skating along a grind rail, sprinting along a wall, swinging on horizontal poles, or bouncing on patio umbrellas. Pairing any of these movements with an air dash perpetuates the player’s momentum infinitely in an open world that is designed to complement these traversal mechanics, orchestrating endless means for players to reach their destination and enjoy themselves getting there as well.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leaguehas now shown each character’s gameplayand what they individually bring to the table in terms of combat. Harley employs a bat-shaped drone of some sort that she uses to hover about and grapple to; Deadshot employs his jetpack, which allows him to hover and also jettison himself upward along buildings; Boomerang interestingly employs some sort of technology that allows him to warp-dash and teleport short distances; and King Shark scales buildings on all fours and leaps great distances with a huge, weighted slam-impact on landing.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leaguemust incorporate all of their unique abilities into traversal as players get across Metropolis, but it also needs to have the same organic fluidity thatSunset Overdriveachieves, marrying traversal with combat in an authentic and inseparable way. Each character should be able to perform similar stylish acrobatics or moves in order to get around, even if it disrupts immersion.
Sunset Overdrive’s protagonist has no feasible right to be able to perform any of the maneuvers they do, and yet the game is all the better for it. Funnily enough,Sunset Overdriveeven has a much more creative and comedic fast-travel system thanGotham Knights, where the player-character instantly drinks themselves into an ethylic coma, only to emerge at the player’s destination from a Portal Potty. InGotham Knights, rather, players are simply airlifted and dropped onto their destination via another glider, called the Fast Bat.Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League’s alien hordesand action-shooter combat already look inspired bySunset Overdrive, and its seminal traversal will hopefully also be looked at for inspiration.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leagueis in development for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
