Kill The Justice League’ Marketing Has Been A Disaster From The Start

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is out in just a few more weeks, but yesterday created a stir where a bunch of journalists and influencers released their impressions of a few hours of gameplay. The influencers liked it more than the journalists, but the overall vibe was mixed to…not great.

But really, this continues a long, long line of marketing mistakes made by Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, though whether that’s Rocksteady or Warner Bros.’ call is unclear. The game may have had some convincing to do with its co-op live service concept, a huge departure from the Arkham games, but it has not managed to sell itself well at all with some truly baffling marketing decisions. Let’s recap:

• In February of 2023, Suicide Squad was part of PlayStation’s State of Play presentation, and it had a full 15 minutes to show off its concept and execution. Instead, the footage was widely reviled (which you can view through underwater likes/dislikes on the trailer to this day) and shortly after, the game was delayed a full nine months out of spring 2023 and into winter 2024 where we are now, though they claimed it was not related to the reaction to the preview.

• Since then, things were relatively barren until a couple of features about various aspects of the game, from its supporting cast to its combat. Those were received less negatively and more mixed but…again, more dislikes than likes, and the general buzz around the game did not improve, and I imagine will not improve when a new one talking about its live service aspects debuts soon.
• Then things get a bit strange. Rocksteady launched a closed alpha for Suicide Squad in late November, just over two month before launch. The entire thing was under NDA for anyone who participated, but the kinds of leaks that emerged from the play session were…mostly positive. That many players enjoyed the game more than they figured they would. However, what seemed like something that could have finally changed the conversation has been left to rot, as all those players remain under NDA and cannot share publicly, in detail, why they did like the game. And there do not appear to be any plans at all for a public beta to give prospective players hands on with the gameplay.
• Now, we have this preview event in LA. This is a rarity in that you generally do not see this many mixed-to-bad reactions out of events like this, as they’re pretty well crafted to show what the company believes are some of the best parts of a game. While big YouTubers seemed to like the game more than journalists, the headlines were pretty uniformly not great. Some of those least impressed with the game like IGN’s Destin Legarie also relayed that there were pretty significant technical problems with the way the event was run, and it was too short in general for a game of this nature.

Then, well, we’re almost at launch here. Again, there’s supposed to be another video “Direct,” this time talking about the game’s live service elements, something most people are going to be predisposed to dislike from the start. It’s bizarre that the main positive press the game has gotten has been from closed alpha leaks that cannot be shared widely because of a strict NDA. And that if the game’s bouncy combat and cluttered UI play better in person, they have not done any sort of open beta to prove that it’s actually going to be fun.

I am not going to pre-judge Suicide Squad until I can play it myself, but even if the core concept was always going to be a hard sell, Warner Bros. has done a terrible job of selling it for the better part of a year now.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.