The superhero game Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has recovered from its complete player crash on Steam. With the launch of Season 1 on March 28, the game received a necessary revival two months after its release, but also a series of new problems:
This is the situation: Suicide Squad was a flop at release but did find players who liked it:
- Those expecting a single-player game like Batman: Arkham Knight were disappointed. However, Suicide Squad attracted at least the hardcore fans of grinding as a service game. MMO players love looting and leveling.
- The game only reached a peak of 13,459 players on Steam, but could not hold onto these few players for long. The player count dropped rapidly. Suicide Squad disappointed the publisher’s expectations.
- With Season 1, some players have now returned: From 269 at 6 PM on March 28, it suddenly jumped to 2,950 at 8 PM.
Season 1 brings the Joker
This came with Season 1: Episode 1: Fear was released on March 28. It brought:
- the Joker as a new playable character
- Green Lantern: Brainiac fight
- new shop items
- new villain sets & notorious equipment
- New invasion missions & bastions
The Joker is behind grind or a paywall
What is the reaction to Season 1? However, the reactions on Discord and Twitter to Season 1 have been terrible, as the US site Kotaku notes.
The Joker is either locked behind a paywall or requires endless grinding, it is said.
One disappointed player is quoted: “Who thought it was a good idea to lock the Joker behind Master 35? They are only doing this so you have to pay for him.”
New boss fight is just a reskin
What do you have to do to unlock the Joker? As Forbes writes, you need Season Rank 35 to fight Brainiac and unlock the Joker. You have to grind about 10 to 20 missions for that. But this is not a fun grind; you have to go through content you have already outgeared.
Is that fun? It doesn’t look like it. As Forbes states, the “new fights” are just variations of old ones. The boss fight against Brainiac is merely a modified version of the “Green Lantern” fight.
Even those who have unlocked the Joker can expect nothing special. There is no cutscene or special story. Even Harley only says she is no longer into comedians.
The Joker himself starts at level 10 and can be leveled up like all characters in the game.
Grind to get players to spend money to spare themselves from the grind
Forbes judges:
- It was already foolish to leave the Joker, a beloved supervillain, out of the game at launch
- Now, it seems like he is only difficult to obtain to encourage players to take the shortcut and pay money
- Although a second part of the season is coming, the Joker should have been playable right from the start in new missions
The sin of service games repeated in a €70 game
What’s behind this: Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League seems to be repeating some of the biggest mistakes of free-to-play MMORPGs from the past.
Making parts of the game particularly frustrating and time-consuming so that players have an incentive to shortcut them through microtransactions is considered a major sin in free-to-play games. We know this from the You have no energy left, wait 24 hours or pay something
-system from mobile games.
Doing this in a game for which you still pay €70 on Steam is awful.
Grinding in service games is important but should apply to everyone and be motivating, not just an excuse to squeeze more money out of a great license.
The initially good Steam reviews have also dropped. The “recent reviews” are now only “mixed” on Steam – 61% are still positive.
More about the game: Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League resets leaderboards because one build is way too strong
