What to Expect from the Justice League in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League

After letting us live out our childhood fantasies by letting us play as Batman in its Arkham series, with its next game, Rocksteady Studios is set to pivot in the exact opposite direction. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League will see players stepping into the shoes of the titular group of villains and supervillains as they’re forced to fight for “good” under the threat of instant death- and as the game’s name suggests, it’ll be the Justice League itself that we’ll be going up against.

Set in the same universe as the Batman: Arkham series, Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad game is making some intriguing promises about how it’s going to depict many of the League’s superheroes in its universe, the vast majority of whom are going to make their first appearance in this universe, and though there’s obviously still plenty that we’re in the dark about on that front, the little that has been officially revealed already has quite a bit of meat to it. So what exactly can we expect from DC’s iconic league of heroes in Rocksteady’s upcoming looter shooter?

Let’s start with the basics first- the Justice League will serve as the villains in Suicide Squad, something that was made abundantly clear as far back as with the game’s announcement trailer a handful of years ago (not to mention, you know, the game’s name). The ultimate big bad is, of course, going to be Brainiac, who has not only taken over Metropolis and is wreaking havoc all over the city, but has also managed to brainwash members of the Justice League, turning them into his puppets and forcing them to do his bidding. In turn, Amanda Waller has sent Task Force X – comprised of Harley Quinn, Deadshot, Captain Boomerang, and King Shark – into Metropolis, with their mission directive being to kill every single member of the League.

That, as you might imagine, is going to be easier said than done. For instance, in the gameplay and trailers that have been released for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League so far, we’ve seen quite a bit of The Flash and how, under the spell of Brainiac, he’s using his superspeed and the many abilities that come with it to devastating effect against the titular Suicide Squad. Though there’s not too much that’s been said about what role he will play in the story, we can probably make some guesses, particularly where his history and dynamic with Captain Boomerang is concerned- the two have, true to the larger DC universe, had more than their fair share of run-ins in the past.

Then there’s the Batman himself. This is the first time that we’re going to see the Caped Crusader in this universe after the events of Arkham Knight, and with Suicide Squad being set several years after the end of that game, it should be interesting to learn what happened to him in the intervening years, especially given the fact that when we last saw him, he had faked his death, even if he was still shown to be operating in the shadows. Does that mean Suicide Squad will show us how he joined up with the Justice League after that, and what his return to the public light entailed?

It’s also worth mentioning that much like The Flash does with Captain Boomerang, Batman also has a long history with members of the Task Force X- in particular Harley Quinn, who had a major role to play in pretty much all of the Arkham games. There’s also Deadshot, who appeared in both Arkham Origins and City, but it looks like Suicide Squad’s Deadshot is going to be different from the character who appeared in past games, who was supposedly an imposter that got hunted down by the real Deadshot. Whether that’s something that the game will explicitly call attention to – perhaps even in a scene where Batman and Deadshot are interacting with one another – remains to be seen.

More so than Batman and The Flash (and Green Lanter, who Rocksteady hasn’t said too much about thus far), the one member of the Justice League that is going to prove to be a daunting foe for Task Force X (to say the very least) is the Son of Krypton himself, a.k.a. Superman. The man (or alien) is all but invincible, after all, with not too many weaknesses to speak of, and though that one weakness – Kryptonite – tends to be used as a deus ex machina in pretty much all Superman stories (and may very well be used in the same capacity in Suicide Squad), there should be almost no doubt that a brainwashed Superman hellbent on doing evil is going to be the toughest fight that the squad will face in the city of Metropolis. Interestingly enough, evil Superman is something that we’ve seen quite a bit of in games, especially in recent years thanks to the Injustice games, so we’re curious to see how Suicide Squad will differentiate its portrayal of the character.

While Batman, Superman, The Flash, and Green Lantern have all fallen under the spell of Brainiac, not all members of the Justice League are going to play the role of villains in Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad game. Princess Diania, a.k.a. Wonder Woman, is very much going to have an important role to play in the game as well, and is, in fact, the only member of the League that has managed to resist the mental assaults of Brainiac. In what we’ve seen of the game so far, she’s been shown continuing her fight against Brainiac and even going up against members of the Justice League – from interrogating The Flash using her lasso to going head-to-head against Superman in a fight – so clearly her interests at least partially align with Task Force X. But exactly how friendly is her alliance with the group of villains going to be? Is there even going to be an alliance? While Wonder Woman and the Suicide Squad are all ultimately going up against Brainiac and the brainwashed Justice League, one would imagine Wonder Woman won’t want to let the squad kill her friends, as they’ve been ordered to do by Amanda Waller.

Which, of course, brings us to our next question- are we going to kill the Justice League? Rocksteady insists that that’s what the game is about, and obviously, there are leaks out there that can confirm or deny that (which we’re not going to get into here, for obvious reasons)- but is the upcoming open world shooter going to be the last we’ll see of the likes of Batman, Superman, Green Lanter, and The Flash in this universe?

Since its announcement, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has attracted its fair share of criticism and skepticism, and as a live service looter shooter coming from a studio that basically no one ever wanted making a live service looter shooter, it’s hard not to understand where all of that skepticism is coming from. Separated from that, however, it’s also hard not to see the inherent appeal of the game’s core premise. Whether or not it will be able to do it justice remains to be seen, but going up against the Justice League is an undeniably enticing prospect.

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