PREVIEW – After two movies and a spin-off series featuring one of the characters (Peacemaker), a video game action-adventure version of Suicide Squad is in the works. From playable characters to release date, here’s everything we know so far.

Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League should also not be confused with Gotham Knights. Sure, both are action-adventure games set in the DC-verse, both are coming out in the near future, and also both star four secondary characters from the comics which were recently popularised by the DCEU, but there is one very clear difference: this game is about the bad guys. Just like the two ‘super villain’ movies of the same name (which have no direct connection to this game), in Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League you will see play as four bad guys best known for their clashes with Batman and co.

Read on to find out everything you need to know about Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, from the latest information on the release date, characters, location, plot, multiplayer mode and more.

When is the release date?

Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League doesn’t have a specific release date yet but is currently expected sometime in the first half of 2023, after being pushed back from the originally planned 2022 release date.

Suicide Squad will be released for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S in addition to Microsoft Windows. I’m afraid there is no word yet on whether we can expect a port to last-gen consoles in the future.

The latest gameplay trailer from last December can be found below (although, unfortunately the actual release date information at the end of the video is out of date):

Who will be the antiheroes of Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League?

Suicide Squad features four of DC’s coolest villains at the moment. Here’s a quick rundown of who they are and how you might know them:

– Harley Quinn, the Joker’s former henchwoman-turned-girlfriend, who’s here after starring in the Suicide Squad movies and also the Birds of Prey spin-off, as well as her own animated series.

– Deadshot, the sniper with a tragic past. This game features another incarnation of Deadshot from the Arkham games, taking inspiration from the first Suicide Squad movie.

King Shark is precisely what he sounds like and recently starred in the movie version of Suicide Squad (you know… the second one) and as the lead character in the Harley Quinn animated series.

– Captain Boomerang, who does what you think he does and had a supporting role in the second Suicide Squad movie. Honestly, it seems like an odd choice to me, but I imagine they came up with a cute boomerang mechanic.

Will other DC characters be in Suicide Squad?

As the title suggests, the enemy NPCs will be largely drawn from the Justice League pantheon, including Superman, Green Lantern and Flash. However, it appears that the general villain will be Brainiac, who has brainwashed the Justice League members, necessitating the involvement of the Suicide Squad to save the day in their own strange way. NPC allies will include Amanda Waller, the founder of Suicide Squad, and Wonder Woman.

What do we know about the location and plot of the Suicide Squad?

In a slight departure from the Rocksteady tradition, Suicide Squad will take place in Metropolis rather than Gotham. Still, it has been confirmed that the events will begin in Gotham’s Arkham Asylum, so it’s also possible that the game will feature familiar DC locations; it has been confirmed that Metropolis inspired the game’s open-world segments. As for the timeline, the game will follow 2015’s Batman: Arkham Knight, but at an as-yet-unknown time.

According to the plot’s structure, Amanda Waller forms the titular Suicide Squad, which consists of four Arkham Asylum inmates on a secret mission to Metropolis. The squad only learns the details after their arrival: Superman’s classic nemesis Brainiac has begun his invasion of Earth. He started with the city of Metropolis, where he has brainwashed several residents, including several members of the Justice League (Wonder Woman has apparently proven immune). The Suicide Squad’s official mission in the game is to stop Brainiac from killing the brain-driven members of the Justice League. Which sounds a bit harsh, but then desperate times call for desperate bad guys.

Is Suicide Squad canonical with the Arkham games?

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is officially considered a sequel to the Batman: Arkham series, thanks mainly to the fact that it was also developed by Rocksteady Studios, the company behind the Arkham games. Still, it’s more of a spin-off than a direct sequel, as it promotes several Arkham supporting characters to main characters and shifts the plot from Gotham to other areas of DC comics.

There were a few off-screen developments between the games that may seem like continuity errors to the uninitiated. For example, Deadshot became African-American, even though he was white in Arkham: Origins (presumably to better match Will Smith’s cinematic portrayal). Still, there’s an official explanation for this: this is the guy who killed the old Deadshot and stole his equipment. This Deadshot, however, claims that the Arkham-era Deadshot stole his identity from him first, meaning that the previous Deadshot was a “fake Deadshot” – so the developers have tweaked it a bit more to make it a bit too easy to switch his physical mask. Still, there’s always a reason to look at the game’s supplemental materials.

As far as I can tell, Batman is conspicuously absent from the game’s promotional materials and nowhere in Brainiac’s mind-control victims. Given that the minor premise is that you have to kill the Justice League, I wonder if Rocksteady’s developers would prefer to keep the Dark Knight in reserve if this spin-off sparks interest in future Arkham games. Or maybe it’s because Bruce Wayne is already dead in Gotham Knights… which is by no means canon, but it would be a bit confusing for WB to release two games in a short period where one has Batman alive and the other dead, wouldn’t it?

Will Suicide Squad have multiplayer?

Suicide Squad will feature a single-player campaign and a cooperative multiplayer mode. The latter will allow up to four players to control one of the playable characters. In the single-player mode, you’ll be able to switch between all four characters, with the other three being controlled by AI when you’re not behind the wheel.

A dynamic team shot of Deadshot, Captain Boomerang, King Shark and Harley Quinn in a close-up in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.

Suicide Squad game engine and system requirements

Suicide Squad was developed in Unreal Engine 4. Expect Windows 10 to run decently on a PC, with at least 8GB of RAM and a decently modern CPU and GPU. Beyond that, not much is known about the system requirements, but given that it’s a PS5 and Xbox Series game, it’s likely to be pretty demanding.

That’s all we know so far about Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, and frankly, I’m looking forward to learning more about this game and how it will give us all the opportunity to be our worst selves.

-theGeek-