Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League comes from Rocksteady Studios, a developer that is more widely known and trusted for its seminal work on the Batman: Arkham trilogy. WB Games Montreal fits into Rocksteady’s DC family as an estranged sibling due to its work on Batman: Arkham Origins and, most recently, the Batman: Arkham Knight DLC Batgirl: A Matter of Family. Gotham Knights has shown off only a bit more than Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has, but there is a lot that Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League can learn from Gotham Knights’ marketing and release.
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The Reception to Gotham Knights Has Been Mostly Lackluster
Many fans are excited about what they were shown in Gotham Knights’ Nightwing and Red Hood gameplay. On the other hand, some fans have inevitably compared Gotham Knights to Batman: Arkham Knight in terms of its visuals and combat.
Concerned about the condition of its final product quality, fans believe Gotham Knights to have inferior visuals and an inferior open-world design. Not all fans have this opinion, but it is interesting to consider in light of how much longer Gotham Knights has before it releases. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League had its own gameplay demonstration following a cinematic reveal teaser and a cinematic story trailer.
Each of the four playable protagonists — Deadshot, Harley Quinn, Captain Boomerang, and King Shark — have been revealed with brief snippets of their unique gameplay, and the mass reception from fans seemed to be positive. Both Gotham Knights and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League have been steeped in hot water since their announcements, mainly because neither of them feature Batman as a playable protagonist.
However, because they offer refreshing takes on characters from DC mythology, both games are now highly anticipated AAA DC titles that will likely be compared together in terms of their successes and failures. Regardless of how it was initially perceived, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League made the decision to take a significant delay that would move its release window from 2022 to spring 2023. Time will tell if Gotham Knights could have also benefited from a delay into 2023, but for now, it seems as if fans would have appreciated it.
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Gotham Knights’ Marketing Suggests it Won’t Change Much Before Release
Because Gotham Knights has begun to roll out its official marketing campaign, fans can be certain that Gotham Knights will in fact launch on its announced release date of October 25. Polish may be applied to Gotham Knights in the five months that it has before it releases, but Gotham Knights is evidently in a condition that WB Games Montreal is pleased with.
If it had not been confident with how Gotham Knights looked or performed, it probably would not have offered such a deep dive on features and mechanics in its latest gameplay walkthrough. Now that two individual gameplay presentations have been shown, it is arguable that Gotham Knights’ first gameplay showing, which featured Batgirl and Robin, had been tailored and edited specifically to have improved visuals than that of its actual development build.
This is notable due to the visual inconsistencies between it and the latest gameplay showing, which featured Nightwing and Red Hood, and how its open-world and character models appear much different. Rather, this visual distinction from presentation-to-presentation could also be what Gotham Knights has deemed an improvement, but the consensus from fans argues that the latter pales in comparison.
WB Games Montreal could be aware that the quality of Gotham Knights does not look up to the expectations fans have, particularly due to it being billed now as a next-gen exclusive title. Without a delay, the release of Gotham Knights on next-gen consoles exclusively may be a last effort from WB Games Montreal to optimize it in such a short amount of time. Instead, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has already been transparent about its next-gen console exclusivity, and its delay will probably help it to benefit from these next-gen optimizations.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League’s Delay is Its Best Decision
Gotham Knights has held strong to its fall 2022 release, and this may or may not turn out to be a poor decision if another delay could have given it the time it needed to apply polish and meet the expectations of fans. It was perhaps decided that only one AAA DC title could be afforded a delay while the other would be back-burned in development, resulting in its early release with an adequately shippable game that could have used a few more months in the oven.
If this is the case, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League was given priority, and it will be interesting to see how much its delay impacts its overall quality in 2023. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League’s push to 2023 gives it ample time for polish and development, and because not much of the game has been shared, it will hopefully be shown again when it can demonstrate how optimized its performance is.
Fans of course want to see more as soon as possible, but it is perhaps in their best interest for Rocksteady to only show gameplay when it can be displayed at the highest possible quality. This way, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League may circumvent critical comparisons or judgments about it lacking polish.
Similarly, Gotham Knights’ marketing campaign has suddenly dumped all its pre-order bonuses and edition content in one go, which may suggest that it is attempting to rush its marketing out the door in time for future content announcements before its launch in October. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League now has time on its side, and can hopefully choose to dole out information gradually and when it is of the utmost quality.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is in development for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
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