It is rare that a final update can crystallize the collective disillusionment surrounding a video game to this extent. The last time such anger could arise, it was undoubtedly in the face of the total failure of the end of Farenheit (which the author of these lines has never digested), or perhaps with the affair of the end of Mass Effect 3but for very different reasons.
With the late conclusion of Suicide Squad : Kill The Justice LeagueRocksteady, once celebrated – and rightly so – for its masterful work on the trilogy Batman: Arkhamshows us that the glory of yesteryear is only a distant memory. The last note added to Suicide Squadwhich our good Cael has strived to present to you, resonates not like a last stand, but like a funeral song, that of a poorly controlled ambition and an aborted narrative vision. This ending, also insipid (not to say stupid – oops –) that botched, constitutes a monumental arm of honor to the players who had dared to believe in this project, as controversial as it may be.
- Also read | The pending test of Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League by Kelma
Upon its release in February 2024, Suicide Squad : Kill the Justice League had sparked severe controversy, but not for the expected reasons. The very concept of a game where anti-heroes methodically eliminate the most iconic members of the Justice League should have divided opinion. Rocksteady seemed to want to move away from traditional narratives to offer a darker and subversive vision, a risky bet on paper. In fact, the concept was largely well received, but it was the lamentable state of the game, without any artistic vision, without creative drive, without the slightest fiber of passion that made history. Without going into detail about this industrial disaster, let's say that the title was not convincing, that the disaster would amount to approximately 200 million dollars, and that this caused several waves of layoffs at Rocksteady.
A year after the Starship rocket launch, the studio finally delivers an official conclusion to the hunt for DC superheroes by the band of broken arms that are Deadshot, Harley Quinn, Captain Boomerang and King Shark. But here it is: when it came time to complete this odyssey, the studio opted for a narrative pirouette unworthy of its initial pretensions. Rather than concluding with the audacity promised in the first place, Rocksteady preferred to take the path of I-don't-care, and serves up a soup worthy of the worst moments of a poorly crafted SyFy science fiction sub-series . The final revelation is as follows: the heroes killed by the Suicide Squad were in reality clones (something already known, but repeated here – see the cynicism of the situation -) created by Batman to deceive Brainiac. Batman wasn't dead, this was all his plan all along. The Justice League arrives, arrests Brainiac. All's well that ends well. And the Suicide Squad flies to other skies. Yes, that sounds like a bad episode of Scooby-Doo.
Not only does this solution play down the established issues, but it also annihilates all the moral and emotional tension built as best it can in the game. This final reversal leaves a bitter impression: that of a studio that was afraid of its own ideas. Instead of fully facing the consequences of its narrative choices, Rocksteady fell back on an inconsequential ending, thus defusing any emotional impact. Worse still: we can only experience it as an insult to the intelligence of the players.
Suicide Squad, Scooby Gang, same fight
The fact of telling this conclusion in comic book form is certainly a sign of major budget cuts at Rocksteady, and of a definitive disavowal on the part of Warner to its underling. The parent company sent a clear message: this game does not deserve additional effort. However, the players who remained faithful to this project – even if they all fit in a subway train – would have deserved better. Players supported the game, consumed (the term is chosen on purpose) its post-launch content, and invested hours into an experience that they no doubt hoped would culminate in a worthy finale. We would even have been satisfied with a stupid and nasty intermediary with a sleight of hand involving a multiverse, with an opening towards the world of Batman : Arkham originals. But no. Instead, we find ourselves faced with a pitiful outcome, which screams in their faces: “Everything you have done is for nothing”. It's hard not to imagine that this is also what the developers of Kill the Justice League faced with Warner's decisions…
Beyond this snub, the consequences could be even more serious. Part of the public saw this ending as a declaration of pure and simple disinterest. Faced with such a botched conclusion, a section of the gaming community interprets this as if Rocksteady was telling them that their involvement does not count. This interpretation of implicit contempt, added to the already difficult context of a resounding commercial failure, could well seal a definitive break between the studio and a significant part of its audience.
-It should be remembered that Rocksteady enjoyed, not so long ago, an immense amount of trust/sympathy among players. The trilogy Arkham remains to this day an essential reference in terms of narration, level design and gameplay in the field of games adapted from comics (or even in the field of license adaptations in general). By launching Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leaguethe studio had the opportunity to reinvent its formula and prove that it could reach beyond the borders of Gotham. However, not only did the game prove incapable of meeting expectations (probably due to a lack of creative vision, to which were added time constraints, profitability requirements and an obsession with live-service from Warner), but this final update drives the point home. Where Rocksteady could have restored its image, and shown that the creators ofArkham were always there, ready to take risks and impose radical decisions (remember that the studio did not hesitate to kill the Joker in its trilogy), it settled for a narrative solution which looks more like an abandonment than a desire to fight to the end.
Beyond the disappointment as a player, we can only see in this lamentable conclusion the fact that Rocksteady is an exhausted studio, emptied of its substance. There is neither inventiveness nor courage in this ending sequence. It was a studio that threw in the towel that produced this infamous thing. The developers' fed-up, their moral and psychological exhaustion can be felt in these clumsily staged final minutes. When we manage to silence our feeling of anger, we manage to perceive something else: it is time that the file Suicide Squad closes, and Rocksteady turns this ungodly page for good.
Except there's a big problem. By delivering an ending that negates everything the game promised, the studio leaves players on the shore of profound disappointment. For those who believed in this project, all that remains is a feeling of betrayal, and for others, who will boast about the fact that they “knew from the start that all this was lost in advance”, the impression that Rocksteady lost its mojo. So what will become of the studio? How to recover after such a commercial failure, the end point of which is a narrative and artistic fiasco? If this very poor conclusion is the final nail in the coffin of Suicide Squad : Kill the JusticeI fear that it is also the sign of Rocksteady's death.
According to some rumors, the studio is working on a new single-player game, perhaps set in the Arkham universe. But nothing is less certain. Rocksteady has been largely wiped out by several waves of layoffs, and most recently, David Haddad, the chairman of Warner Bros. Interactive: resigned. Currently, Warner Interactive appears like a drunken boat, sailing by sight, whose twisted compass only points to one North: the commercial success ofHogwarts Legacy. We would not be surprised to learn in the coming months that Rocksteady has been completely disbanded, and its surviving workforce transferred to projects deemed bankable by Warner. All that will remain then are the memories of the beautiful hours spent roaming Gothic Gotham, tracking down the enigmas of the Riddler as traces of the past mastery of a bloodless studio. And we can't even imagine the pressure weighing on Monolith Studio's shoulders, while the developers have been working on the project for more than four years. Wonder Woman.
