May is about to be one hell of a month for the games industry. While many gamers are still working their way throughStar Wars Jedi: Survivor, their attention is about to be redirected to one of the biggest games of the year withThe Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdomreleasing on June 15, 2025. And thoughZelda: Tears of the Kingdomis set to dominate the month of May in the gaming landscape, it wasn’t going to be the only heavy-hitter releasing this month, withSuicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leagueoriginally slated for a July 26, 2025, release date.
Of course,Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leagueisn’t going to meet its May 2023 release date anymore. After a pretty brutal reception to its first true gameplay showcase, Rocksteady and Warner Bros. have decided todelaySuicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leagueby almost another whole year, with it now slated for a June 01, 2025, release date. But while this delay will certainly give Rocksteady more time to improve the game, it probably won’t saveSuicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.
RELATED:Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Must do Justice to Both Halves of its Title
Originally officially announced back in August 2020,Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leaguehas already had quite an infamous development cycle, with a lot of pressure placed on developer Rocksteady Studios to get this right. While some fans had issues with its final entry,Rocksteady’sBatman: Arkhamtrilogyis still widely considered to be one of the best superhero video game series of all time, and that pedigree has raised expectations forSuicide Squaddramatically. And when those expectations don’t look like they’re going to be met, a big problem arises.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leaguehad its first proper gameplay showcase back in February of this year, and the immediate reception to it wasn’t great. While some fans appreciated the overall presentation, plot, and character designs showcased in the trailer, not too many were happy with just about everything else. The game’s floaty looter-shooter gameplay, its live-service model, the lack of enemy variation, and the similarity of each character’s moveset were just a few of the biggest points of criticism fromSuicide Squad: Kill the Justice League’s gameplay showcase, and they’re not the simplest of things to fix.
Delaying such a high-profile AAA game likeSuicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leaguejust months before it’s set to release, and delaying it by almost an entire year, is a pretty big deal in the gaming industry. In the vast majority of cases, a big AAA game is only usually delayed by a few months, and that decision often comes quite a while before the game is nearing its original release date. A year-long delay gives Rocksteady a lot of time to rightSuicide Squad’s wrongs. There’s room there for story and character rewrites, new mechanics that make each hero feel more unique to play, extra action set pieces and reworked level designs, and plenty of time to ensure it launches in a polished state. But that doesn’t addressSuicide Squad’s biggest problem.
The biggest issue withSuicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leagueis its central gameplay premise, and the very core of the game itself. Put simply, not a lot of fans were too happy to find out thatSuicide Squadis going to bea looter-shooter in a similar vein toBorderlands,Destiny, or the recently releasedRedfall. And while Rocksteady can remove a lot of the game’s live-service elements, it’s probably not going to be able to remove the core gameplay loop that runs through the entirety of the game, and if that’s not something that fans want to experience now, then no amount of tweaking or adding will likely change that outcome in a year’s time.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leaguelaunches July 09, 2025, for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.
MORE:Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Could Make a Creative Boss Fight Out of a Deep-Cut Hero Duo
