Remember 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Marvel’s Avengers? I was in the room on that fateful day in 2019 as 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Square Enix and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Crystal Dynamics revealed its ambitious superhero live-service title to the world. They spoke♚ about it with excessive gravitas, introducing familiar characters, an epic story, and upcoming plans for the future without once telling us what this game actually was. No information about how it would play, whether it was online or single-player, or even if it had a connection with the MCU.
It closed out the 2019 press conference in Los Angeles, but instead of rampant excitement we were left with tepid confusion. Four years later, with its online services no longer getting support and development having ceased, I don’t think Marvel’s Avengers ever escaped the stink of its damning first impression. All the cool heroes and quality of life improvements in the world couldn’t detract from a project that was ultimately doomed from the start. A square peg bludgeoned into a round hole by a child instructed to make something he didn’t want to understand. You never want any game to fail, but it was hard to look at the writing on the wall in this instance and view it as anything other than permanent. You’d think the industry learned its lesson, but then along came 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Rocksteady’s 168澳洲幸运🎃5开奖网:Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League.
Rocksteady has stressed that Kill The Justice League takes place in the Arkhamverse, but I’m curious to see how f🐈ar t𓆏hat definition can be stretched come release.
I’m not ignorant to the fact that Suicide Squad was already in development at the time of Marvel’s Avengers release, and given how expensive and how long video games take to make in the modern era, Rocksteady likely wasn’t in a position to drastically course correct. It had already established the live-service foundations of its upcoming open world co-op hero shooter, and any attempt to break that apart would only reveal how surface level it truly was. A game driven by a constant stream of loot, seasonal updates, and characters you’re asked to stick with across repetitive missions drowned out by endless streams of combat. We had few nice t𒊎hings to say about the recent closed alpha, and with only a week until release, it is har🃏d to view it as any𒈔thing other than an unfortunate failure.
Earlier this week saw Rocksteady unveil the first seasonal update for Kill The Justice League as it confirmed that Joker would be coming to the game as its first new playable c🅰haracter. It isn’t Mark Hamill’s Joker, and is instead bei🌠ng billed as an Elseworlds interloper because, in this take on the Batman mythos, the Clown Prince of Crim🦩e is long dead. The idea of a toxic legacy in the wake of his death could be a powerful storytelling tool if done right, but I fear Rocksteady is going to swap any substance out for brief cutscenes, infodumps, and even more sick loot.
Right now, I find myself instilled with a sense of morbid hope, watching the game from afar and hoping it will be good, or at least have a couple of worthwhile qualities to justify pushing through the mediocrity. But if I’m honest with myself, I know it won’tও. No matter how kinetic or impressive the combat or how lavishly produced the narrative sequences are, it’s all leading up to damage numbers, seasonal updates, and hoping to instil a desire in me to keep on playing no matter what. There is no incentive to tell a satisfying story or pursue a true creative vision 𓃲because, by its very design, Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League is made to sink its claws in before never letting go.
As was Marvel’s Avengers, but we saw through that cynical ploy and aren’t afraid to walk away. In a world where superhero games like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Marvel’s Spider-Man are cr🎃itical and commercial darlings and more single-player epics featuring Iron Man and Black Panther are in the works, pinning all our desires on a commercially driven live-service is a fool’s errand. We’ve already turned it into a meme and shamed it into a year-lꦍong delay, and I just know that whatever comes out next week is going to be dragged through the mud just as much.
It’s difficult because Kill The Justice League represents a future for gaming I fundamentally do not believe in. There is a place in this industry for live services and seasonal updates, but to see corporations pour millions of dollars and years of creative talent into 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:ga🌄mes🦹 which are doomed to chase failing trends makes me mourn what could have been, and how in only two years' time we will probably be looking back on Rocksteady’s latest to say I told you so.
Like Marvel’s Avengers, it will become an unfortunate stain on the studio’s legacy and a lesson in how corporate greed can warp initially good intentions into something barbaric. Rocksteady may have salvaged its marketing and done everything it can to create a compelling game at the en♒d of it all, but it will never shake that first impression. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.
