After ‘Suicide Squad,' WB Is Making Another Live-Service DC Game

Forbes

4 days ago

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League
WB may be producing some solid movies and TV shows as of late, despite all its corporate and branding drama, but video games? It's in a weird place. After the huge success of the single-player Hogwarts Legacy and the utter disaster that was the live-service Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, the demand from David Zaslav at the top was…more live-service games. And here we are, with WB gearing up for another DC one, it seems.
This news comes from a job listing (via Tech4Gamers) that lists a new executive producer job at WB Montreal hiring for an unannounced game. They are to 'lead the development of a high-quality AAA game based on one of the iconic IPs from the vast Warner Bros. and DC Comics catalog.' Okay, that's good! But they also have to 'oversee post-launch content and live service strategy, ensuring ongoing player engagement.' Oh no.
It is not easy to forget what a disaster Rocksteady's Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League was, which debuted with poor scores, poor sales and poor retention for its live-service aspects. After Marvel's Avengers had tried and failed to make a live-service superhero game, Suicide Squad was an even worse attempt and reportedly lost WB $200 million.
Suicide Squad
There is supposed to be a more traditional Arkham game in the works from Rocksteady now, according to past reports, but WB does not seem like it's going to be able to give up the chase to try and jam DC superheroes into a live game.
FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™
Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase
Pinpoint By Linkedin
Guess The Category
Queens By Linkedin
Crown Each Region
Crossclimb By Linkedin
Unlock A Trivia Ladder
In 2025, it is hard enough to sustain a live-service game, especially one based on producing significant, ongoing PvE content. But it's even harder with a superhero concept, as evidenced by these failures. Marvel's Avengers had to awkwardly insert bizarre loot like finding drops of Black Widow belts or Hulk rib cages. They also quickly realized that the pace of delivering new heroes and content was wildly harder than they thought, and they fell behind without ever catching up.
To its credit, Suicide Squad did produce its year of content in a timely manner before throwing in the towel but it…wasn't good. A similar problem existed with loot, as the game attempted to make all its characters use guns including ones where it made no sense like Captain Boomerang and King Shark. It also had a story everyone hated based around the uncomfortable concept of killing off the Justice League (though in the follow-up content no one played, it was revealed those were actually all clones, and the real JLA survived. Except uh, Wonder Woman. RIP).
There are no indications about what kind of game this would be. James Gunn has previously said he wants the DCU to have attached video games, which seemed incredibly ambitious given development timelines. It's not impossible this could be the plan, however, as WB desperately wants to get the DCU off the ground, and a good live-service game could bolster that. Making a good live-service superhero game, however, is going to be next to impossible, a lesson WB very much should have learned.
Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.
Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.