Suicide Squad game by Rocksteady released but quickly removed

Image: Rocksteady Studios/Warner Bros. Games

Michael McWhertor
is a journalist with more than 17 years of experience covering video games, technology, movies, TV, and entertainment.

Rocksteady Studios’ first big game in nearly a decade is off to a rough start. Players who had early access to Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League started the game on Monday and were presented with a big surprise: Upon logging in for the first time, they had full story completion.

That massive bug, which would conceivably unlock certain game features and open the floodgate of story spoilers, forced Rocksteady to quickly take the game offline to perform maintenance. On Rocksteady’s X account for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, the developer said it’s “aware that a number of players are currently experiencing” that issue. As it works on the bug, the game will be unavailable.

“We expect this to take several hours and will update once we have more information,” the developer said. “We apologise for the inconvenience.”

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is an always-online game, meaning that even the single-player portion of the game is unplayable.

We’re aware that a number of players are currently experiencing an issue whereby upon logging into the game for the first time, they have full story completion.

To resolve this issue, we will be performing maintenance on the game servers.

During this time the game will be…

— Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League (@suicidesquadRS) January 29, 2024

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League officially launches on Feb. 2, but customers who pre-ordered the game’s Deluxe Edition on PlayStation 5, Windows PC, or Xbox Series X get up to 72 hours of early access to the game.

That early access period now appears to have caused Rocksteady extra grief as word also spreads that publisher Warner Bros. Games did not provide pre-release review code to media outlets. Publications like IGN ran stories over the weekend, noting that the publisher has opted not to send out review code until the game’s servers go live — or not at all, in the case of IGN, which ran a negative-leaning preview of the game ahead of launch. Polygon also did not receive review code ahead of Suicide Squad’s launch.

Rocksteady’s journey to bring Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League to life has been a challenging one, beset by delays, major story leaks, blowback over the game’s live-service multiplayer focus, and the unwelcome revival of certain characters from the Batman Arkham games.

 

Source: Polygon