I played 'Suicide Squad' and I have thoughts… 

Really should have been a linear story driven game

It took Rocksteady a decade and a half and three games to build up all that goodwill and WB Games had them blow through it in about a year. Nice job.

“I don’t know why you’d pay $70 to get 7 minutes of interesting content, and then 2 hours of bloat and then you gotta sift through all that bloat to get to the good stuff.” Welcome to live service.

This is my biggest issue with games like this. Avengers. Gotham Knights. They're all holding a interesting and appealing narrative, that they know people would want to see, in the dullest, most mind numbing, and boring grind, a human could possibly experience. Even hearing about the gameplay experience you had, nearly put me to sleep. The sooner this trend of live service games crashes and burns, the better off we all shall be

"it's fun with friends!" Literally anything is fun with friends

Honestly I was looking forward to this game when it was first announced because I love Suicide Squad and think a Suicide Squad game would be awesome. But honestly, after finding out it’s live-service and it’s forced online multiplayer, I really have no interest anymore.

If it was any other studio yk id be fine what hurts is that this is rocksteady the guys that redefined the superhero genre the Arkham series is genuinely my favorite series of all time to seem them fall into the common tropes of the video game industry now just hurts

Seems like the game is going to be what I expected based on the trailers and news. I doubt I'll pick this up. I loved Arkham Asylum and especially Arkham City. I had hoped Rocksteady would remain focused on story-driven games as they know how to make that type of games imo.

It would be really cool if Harley had only her hammer and an RPG and maybe some of the Arkham Joker gadgets, Boomer had his various special boomerangs King Shark was purely melee, and Deadshot had all the guns. Genuinely give the characters some different play styles

I know this seems harsh, but I genuinely hope this game tanks financially. WB Games should have recognized long ago that the live service model is not the right call for Rocksteady, these characters, or the publisher in general. We've seen so many games like this die spectacularly, and quite literally only a handful truly succeed. The people who pushed the game in this direction need to learn. If that harsh truth requires utter failure, so be it.

I have a feeling this game is going to have an absolutely microscopic community of players, like single digit players like Marvels Avengers which had a Steam player count of less than 10 by the end of the games life before it was taken offline and digital stores.

Been following your journey talking about this game for months and just seeing the tonal shift a lil now is what I expected from you. Keep up the good work we need people like you in this industry even more today 😂😂😂

If the story is the fun and best part: it should have been a single player story driven game

there's actually 2 games in Suicide Squad one is from Rocksteady with good characters, good writing, story, voice acting and good small missions (as Luke said ~7 mins) second game is from studio heads and executives, live service, looter-shooter, boring open world

The characters in the menu screen look incredible. 10 out of 10 on character design/aesthetics and animations

I hate it that because some people buy into this crap of live service games, gaming companies will keep pumping these out.

The more gameplay i see of this its making me feel like they’re trying to make these characters move like spiderman when it just doesn’t make sense

I cannot imagine, as an adult, spending money on a game that is explicitly designed around playing with the same group of friends. It's rare that I get time to play games myself, let alone with the same group of friends, and if we ever do it's maybe one or two hours. This approach to games is perfectly fine for lower priced or free games, but a triple A title really should be fully playable alone or it'll just go the route of really any other fully-priced game that requires a consistent squad

I want single player Batman games to come back and NEVER GO AWAY! There's so much potential for all sorts of Batman games that could be made. They are some of my favorite games

Feels so sad. A solid 6/7 from a studio that should be making a 10. Great impressions. These companies don't realize how groundbreaking addictive the game loop has to be to make a real live service.

Thank you for both your honest opinion, and for confirming my worst fear in regards to this game. As per your suggestion, I think I'll just watch the cutscenes on RU-vid and experience the story without dealing with the boring grind. Such a shame, I still had some hopes for this one.

From the amazing batman series, to this. Jesus.

And this is why we love you luke, you're honest, about the good the bad and the ugly ☮️

It sounds like a true example of the battles of corporate vs. artist. There are signs of a really great game, but the corporate profit quota interrupts the artist’s vision. 😢

this game sounds like I'll be watching it completely on RU-vid

You either die a hero or live long enough to become the villan.

Imagine playing as King Shark and he can't swim in the game.

Bro really loves game releases so he can farm drama 24/7. Then when no games release he refarms the drama from older titles. How anyone can stand this dude is beyond me.

After Akham Knight dropped, if you would've told me that Rocksteady's next game would be a looter shooter, I would've spit at your feet and said "GOOD DAY SIR", then walked away.

I'm (not) waiting for this game. Another looter shooter from studio that used to make good games, but was milked by corporation (I'm looking at you Arkane)

You know the arena battle missions in Spider-Man? The ones you do if you really, really like the gameplay and need something to do outside the story? That's what most of the STORY missions feel like in this game. It's the same issue I had with Marvel's Avengers. It got old really quickly because you can be forced to stand in a circle and fight generic goons for only so long.

The studio is called Rocksteady but it isn’t The Rocksteady that made The Arkham Games. Rocksteady has gotten new leadership and new developers.

We know, Luke. We fucking knew for awhile lol.

It just looks like Crackdown and Sunset Overdrive with DC villains.

Praying for Rocksteady’s recovery/freedom from painfully mid decisions 🙏🏽🙏🏽

imagine if this game was made like the square enix's GOTG game, it was freaking amazing. trend chasing really hurts games so much

It's a real shame this is what Rocksteady has been working on as opposed to you know a Superman game...

I know a lot of people make that quote, but I have a feeling some people really do think the official definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over again and expecting different results”. It’s from a quote attributed to Einstein, not an actual definition

Sounds like a game that I will just watch a let's play and jumping ahead in the video during the combat

They really should have given us more powerful members of the suicide squad from the comics bc I have a hard time believing that these four alone can kill the entire justice league 💀

The live service aspect is what will and does kill the enjoyment from the sounds of it. I feel Rocksteady will rely on the BP to keep people engaged instead of the game itself. It'll be an MTX hellscape I'm sure of it. They didn't put the store or BP tab during Alpha for a reason because they know it will be a point of contention.

Pretty sure everyone knew that this was gonna be a blunder since they revealed the battle pass and shop . The only redeeming factor it might have is that it’s being written by what’s left of rocksteady

Imagine having to play test this for 10 years while in development

Definitely gonna watch the cinematics and understand the story on RU-vid and move on

Think I’ll replay the Arkham series when this comes out in honour of what a good superhero game should be, 🥂

When I see Sweet Baby inc is involved, I avoid immediately

Was never sold on playing these villains because im not into the alien sci-fi setting. I rather see these characters in something a bit grittier like Asault on Arkham but scaled up! Imagine if they had made a Green Arrow Black Canary game

At this point im convinced people live in willful ignorance or are so high off copium and hope they cant think properly. The moment i saw the announcement for this game and who was making it i KNEW what kind of game it would be. And here we are idk how many years later and its once again true. I truly do not know what people realistically thought was gonna happen.

So are most of the missions out on the rooftops??! I’m so confused. What about infiltration? Anything indoors?? Any other objectives than shoot and fly around rooftops?

All the feedback I've been hearing is that this is exactly the game I thought it was gonna be. I'd be shocked if the live service wasn't an executive having more greed than sense.

I’ve been staring at that drink every time the vid cuts back to you. What is that😂

it boggles my mind how, in a successful studio, in a brainstorm someone said, what if we make a game with 4 playable characters, really going into what makes them unique and giving them playstyles to fit each one, so you get a different experience as all of them. and quickly after saying that just say, nah just give them all guns makes this a looter shooter with gear drops and floating numbers. Yikes bro

This seems pretty interesting! It is giving me Avengers vibes tbh. It makes me really nervous. I probably won’t buy this on release it seems like a buy on heavy sale kind of game. So many releases I am more into but this could potentially be good.

"Purple guys with big zits on their back." - Luke Stephens 2024 And I've been watching zit videos recently 😂

Love your videos! Ok im not always with same side with you those reviews. But you are the best let say game tester hahah. Keep up the good work

I cant wait to watch all the cutscenes on youtube and call it a day. GG rocksteady

I'm like most of us, I think. I was really excited by the prospect of a Rocksteady Suicide Squad game. It being Kevin Conroy's last performance also had me pretty invested. I don't usually get excited about a big AAA thing, unless it is Doom or a few other series. I let myself get pretty hyped for this. Welp, here we are. It's another one of these. I might check it out when it is discounted just for the story mode...which surely will not be tacked on to herd people online. It's a shame. Don't @ me with "but real people worked on this and we need to support them!" If you think that a better bottom line is better for the workers in the pits, the people developing these games? You are not paying attention.

This is where the skepticism comes in. I’ll wait till the price drops and see what the reviews say about it. Thanks again Luke.

Thanks for the coverage, Saul

Bro had me laughing when you said trust me bruh 😂👊

We just have to come to terms with the fact that this Rocksteady is just not the Rocksteady of the past at all. There won't be any more awesome single-player games from them. Very, very unfortunate.

Still looking forward to this game with friends

In terms of a mini map, though I always think that one should be included and the ability to turn them on and off should always be a feature, I gotta say I've played my open world games without a mini map, and found the experience to be pretty interesting. For me, I want as little clutter clogging the screen as possible while playing, so I can get the full view of the gaming screen. Also the mystery of not exactly knowing where side quests might be is interesting. At the same time, I do want a mini map to always fall back on for when I need to discover a thing. But that's my opinion on open world rpgs, Suicide Squad is really the type of game that should always have a mini map, even if toggleable.

Luke, you are so well spoken it was a refreshing pleasure to listen to you. No umms and aahhs, no hype, no catchphrase, no 'like like', just fluent, off the cuff, eloquent dialogue. Well done, you got me very interested... in more of your reviews. As for the game, I don't think it will matter what has been or will be said about it, so many people are looking forward to it, including me, even if only for a couple of hours. I'm sure it will be a success and continue to be developed to an extent so that you will enjoy it again. The alpha is only an alpha, wait for the beta. Here's a quick quote from google "Only functionality and usability are checked during Alpha Testing"

So for Suicide Squad, I will say the gameplay isn't so bad, I do like the flow of combat even if some if it feels janky like the snap shop when melee and how locked in it feels. I do like the traversal for all the characters, I think Boomerang and Deadshot have the best, King Shark isn't the best but is the easiest to use. Harley's isn't so great in my opinion since I feel like it isn't as traversal but a nice touch is you can hold the wire, swing and shoot from mid-air. The slide and perfect landing feels off to me, I can rarely get it right. The Voice acting is amazing and some of the motion capture is quite good. and the ideas after Arkham Knight is nice, but I kinda wanted a game during that time and hope to see how things became the way it was. When you pick a character which is somehow annoying to do than it should be, and start match making. If you see 3 Harleys and 1 Shark, your first thought is to swap to even things out and be able to hear different dialogue. Unless this is a locked feature, but since its 3 months away, you can't switch characters until you leave the session. Like, why? And the matchmaking is terrible, feels lifeless and it can be abused, I joined a game and this guy purposefully idled and there is nothing that can be done. I'm most concerned is about the gameplay experience, the loot doesn't feel rewarding or really special. I sometimes forget I can loot things from the ground. And they don't look all that spectacular, because they want to sell cosmetics that look better than what you get in the game. The menu design feels clunky, feels like a maze for me to navigate especially on PC. And for a PC port they half assed it, the controls is strange...L-Alt is the Dodge button which can be important since it activates other things. Had to rebind it. And, at least with the introduction missions, the pacing was terrible, you could be doing a longish mission then suddenly doing short ones that are poorly cut off. It felt off to me. Admittedly, the only thing that would make me want to buy this at the moment is the story and characters of the Justice League.

I feel this game is going to define what we call a Mid game from now on. Games slightly better than this will get called good or decent, games worse than this will be bad or disappointing. This is going to be True Mid

Love this guy’s setup. The black contrast is comfy and awesome!

Hahahaha what he said at the end about just watching the cinematic cut together on RU-vid 😂. That’s exactly what I was gonna do with this game.

So this is what I got: The stuff players and fans ACTUALLY wanted, is very minimal & enjoyable but it gets drowned in the stuff we don’t want😂 kind of reminds me of Spider-Man 2 dev mentality right? Unless it’s on game pass, I’m not bothering with this stuff. I hear the princess peach game is going to be fun👍

Idk I actually liked the game during that alpha test. Maybe not to pay 70 bucks for it, but still enjoyable. We need to understand this is simply not an Arkham game (which yeah I would've preferred)

In Marvel's Spider-Man you can find every collectible by scanning for scope glint, light sources, and listening for beeping trackers. In Assassin's Creed 1 the rafiq tells you exactly where every mission is during your briefing for the sequence. In Far Cry 5 handcrafted roads lead between missions and rescued civilians will provide valuable information on the local area when questioned. Open world games *very frequently* give you much more information than you actually need, which is why you didn't use any of these and found everything through scanning, climbing viewpoints, and following map markers. In these cases disabling more HUD *improves* your experience. I have to assume impatient people fail to pick up on these design choices during playtesting and they just end up getting band-aid fixed by adding more HUD. Just because there's an obvious or obnoxious way to find something doesn't mean it's the only way to find it

Thanks for your assessment! I've been excited about the game for a while and curious how it was going to be received.

The batman section was awesome. My friends and I loved the surprise of it and I hope there's more like that in the game because if it was like that, and less flip your way to the next checkpoint, it would be awesome

Why does this game even exist after what happened to Square Enix and the Avengers game?

This kind of makes me appreciate that in Baldur's Gate 3 multiplayer a lot of the dialog and banter is removed.

Btw, most of the cutscenes were to show new mechanics and build up / introduce everyone to the characters in the game. I won't judge the level of interruptions based on playing through what was basically a 2 hour tutorial.

I dont usually play looter shooters. But I have been a fan of Suicide Squad since I was a kid. I typically play games like dragon dogma, witcher, baldur gate, guild wars 2 and ff14. Shooters arent usually my things less cyber punk /mass effect The live services I am a bit eerie about BUT they are apparently adding an offline mode. I will give the game a chance because imo it looks fun. By all means it is fine if you dont think the game is your thing. I think for me it will be a change of pace from what I usually play. I think it will be fun for me to play solo and with some friends. Idk if the game is worth 70 though but i do know ... I do wanna play the game. Just dont know if i am willing to pay 70😂 Basically it boils down to will I get my money worth with the game costing 70 .. or wait for a sale. Regardless I will play the game but I may wait for a sale. I have seen opinions from both sides. I think this will prob be one if thise games that you either really love it or hate it. Could possibly fall into just being mid for but i think it will be one extreme or the other. Just from the different alpha reviews i have seen .

I've been going through the Borderlands games again and I think those offer more genuine experiences than this. Sure the Borderlands stories, especially 3 can be cringe, but that was back when the looter shooter genre felt new and unique. Diablo with guns and there's plenty of bosses, loot, and skill trees with different playstyles and abilities to level up? I'd rather just do that

I immediately thought of gears of war when you mentioned the slow walk dialogue sequence

I'll be looking up the boss fights for this game when it comes out, and that will be it.

Bro IGN lost me when they complained about not being able to hit Flash in his boss fight. 💀 And they didn't even talk about gear and stuff like that really. The smaller creators definitely did better. The story, the melee finishers, traversal and gunplay looks and feels really satisfying.

I played the beta and actually really enjoyed it. It’s not what I wanted nor expected from Rocksteady after being a fan since Asylum, but I enjoy the gameplay and think it’ll be fun with friends. I genuinely think if a different studio made this exact game there’s be a whole lot less blow back and more people would be accepting of it, but it’s so different than what Rocksteady has previously put out that it’s only natural for people to be skeptical

Thank you for your honest thoughts and opinions on this game, really puts my biggest fears about the game out there cause I was afraid it would get boring real quick

This is exactly the sort of reaction I was expecting this game to receive tbh. I was worried as soon as I saw the first trailer

I always appreciate that you're not afraid of developers "blacklisting" you for your opinion.

They took the name of the game too literally. They wanted to commit suicide making this game

That shark dude look hilarious, I’m gonna play as him

Harley’s face at 3:45 just screams, “Why are we still here? Just to suffer?”

I have a multitude of reasons why I canceled my preorder. I also played the alpha but I don’t see my self spending more than a week or two on this game. I’m still hoping the best for the game and rock steady though 🖤

I’ve played it on matchmaking mode and there was an area that was interesting and was lore related for the pass games and I got kicked out for taking to long exploring the game

I watched this video when it first came out and as we get closer to launch there seems to be a shift in perception of things are looking up for the game, I don’t think this game is as cut as dry as it’s not the game we wanted them to make so it’s bad. The game play does look genuinely fun and those who played the alpha like yourself have said they seem to enjoy it as well. Post launch I would love to hear your thoughts on the game. If they have changed or if they have remained.

Live service looter shooter + Sweet Baby Inc. had a hand in making it = Easiest no buy ever

Luke, we didnt make your dreams a reality. You did that. Its not because you are "Luke" we watch you. Its because yiu put in the damn effort. The boots on the ground. All delivered to us in an easy and fun to digest package. No bro, thank you for making your dreams come true. Gives me content to watch.

I had fun with the gameplay and the story so far. I played a lot of the alpha (even got boomerang to the highest “LVL” you can get. While I don’t know if I’ll play much of the end game, I think I’ll have a good time with the game.

From what I played in the alpha my thoughts so far are this. The shooting and movement felt really fluid and arcade like sort of like sunset over drive the characters and dialogue weren't bad they reminded me of the GOTG game a game that was only saved by the characters banter But talking about the bad things I'd definitely say that the skill tree was restrictive and lacked any kind of build variety, and lastly shooting purple blobs did get old quite quickly shocker I know

I’m going to play this with my friends, hopefully they add new stuff to make it feel fun to play

They need to rename this game to Suicide Squad Killed the Gaming Studio

My dad was somehow one of the alpha testers and told me about this, so I watched him, and forgot everything instantly. But I knew everything he knew. Being a kid I talked about it a little bit to others.

“The concept of freedom of speech is often celebrated as a fundamental right, yet it is intriguingly juxtaposed with the existence of legal instruments such as non-disclosure agreements and gag orders. These mechanisms serve to curtail the very liberty they purport to protect, creating a complex landscape of expression bounded by the contours of legality.”

Luke could you please have someone put more of your videos on Apple Podcasts? I’ve sadly listened to all the ones you have on there. They help me get through work. I’d be very grateful.