Report explains why Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League game flopped

A report has been published detailing what went wrong with AAA game Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.

The game was made by Rocksteady Studios who is usually more renowned for single player games, such as the Batman Arkham series.

While Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is set in the same universe, the studio's first foray into a live service multiplayer game is one of the biggest flops in gaming of 2024 - it's understood to have caused a $200m loss for publisher Warner Bros.

So how did it go so wrong?

According to a number of employees who spoke to Bloomberg, it was a number of different things that led to the one big failure.

It included a direction that kept changing, a strive for microscopic perfection and a foray into a new genre that the studio just wasn't ready for, says the Bloomberg report.

This was on the back of a successful 2023 in gaming for Warner Bros, who published Hogwarts Legacy by Portkey Games, a label set up specifically for games in the wizarding world.

Hogwarts Legacy was the best selling game of the year despite not winning any awards; more than 24m copies were sold worldwide that year alone.

The most recent developer update for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League said: "Now that both Episodes for Season 1 are in your hands, our developer updates will change from being weekly to releasing them when we have big news to share about future content.

"We hope this will make the release of each new update an exciting event, while keeping you all up to date on all the happening with the game!"

While it seems attention is already starting to turn away from the game, it has not deterred Warner Bros from investing in this area, with Rocksteady reportedly going back to its single-player roots to help create a 'director's cut' of Hogwarts Legacy.

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel

Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.