Rocksteady Studios has announced a last minute delay for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Season 2.
The studio shared this message on the game’s official Twitter account:
“Update: Task Force X, we’ll be adjusting the release timing for the next season, #SuicideSquadGame Season 2 will now launch on July 25. Thank you for your patience.”
Season 2 was originally going to launch this July 12, so that delay is not that big. The announcement certainly came at the last minute, which makes it sound like they just caught a bug that was serious enough that they had to fix it before the official launch.
We won’t belabor the point on how poorly Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has done. Rocksteady’s efforts are now going towards redeeming the game in the eyes of the people who already bought the game, and when they win those gamers back, they can then work towards making a game that players will want to jump into.
It may seem unlikely now, but this is not unheard of in the live service genre. In spite of the overwhelming bad press, and poor fan and critical reception, it is absolutely possible for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League to stage that comeback.
There is no big secret here; Rocksteady can’t fix the story or make the playable characters likeable, but if they make the actual gameplay fun and engaging, that will help them stage that comeback.
If you are having a hard time imagining this, we’ll share a few examples. Final Fantasy 14 seemed similarly irredeemable, but Square Enix swallowed the cost of rebuilding their game from scratch, and designer Naoki Yoshida proved his chops by spearheading this successful comeback.
Similarly, Fortnite wasn’t actually doing all that well when it was launched as a survival tower defense game. When Epic Games added a battle royale mode, clearly copying PUBG, Fortnite then hit unprecedented success, not only in the genre, but in the entire game industry.
Rocket League, Destiny 2, Halo Infinite, Sea of Thieves, Warframe, and other live service games can tout similar cycles where they experienced a rise and fall, and many of these games were not popular when they launched as well.
Even with the money that goes into making live service games, game studios can still see the upside to keep working on failing live service games. That’s because once the games bounce back, they will become a steady and reliable source of income.
So if you’re perplexed why Rocksteady still isn’t giving up on this game and working on another Batman Arkham game already, that would be the reason. WB will likely not try to make a game like this again, with the new DC Studios status quo, but they’ll want to get whatever money they can make back if it’s possible.
