Rocksteady has outlined that seasons for Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League will last four months, and yet, with the launch of Season 1, the reality is much worse than those had hoped and probably as expected as many predicted. If you weren’t a fan of the base game, the first part of Season 1 will do little to convince you , and if you were a fan, it’ll probably turn you against it. 

For those who have started Season 1 of Suicide Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League, you probably noticed that the newest “hero,” the Joker, is locked behind a grind. Personally, I don’t have much of an issue with the character locked behind doing something. I know, the game launched at a $70 price tag, which was for the content packaged in it. Seasons and heroes are free, and the reality of things is that Rocksteady is probably going to do something to make sure they can have players play as much as possible. Almost every other GaaS (Games as a Service) does it, too, and based on the clear indicators, I wasn’t expecting Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League to be any different, especially since they said you could just downright buy heroes if you want to use them right away. 

Some system was always going to be in place that was probably going to require time and effort — It’s a GaaS game after all. 

However, given how Rocksteady has been so adamant about how they’re doing seasons, and how the narrative would be a focus, many fans didn’t expect it to be this bad. 

So, to explain what you are getting, upon booting up the game, you are greeted with a seasonal introduction animated cutscene showing off the Joker. It’s the traditionally animated videos that many, like Apex Legends, Overwatch, and even Call of Duty (CGI), have done for every season. No harm there, I suppose, as it gets the lore of things out of the way, so it’s up to speed with what’s going on in the game at this very moment. 

So, after watching this and getting a few pop-ups explaining the season, you’d think that, like many other GaaS titles out there, you would be thrown into some new activities and such. And seeing that Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League is more in line with Square Enix’s Marvel’s Avengers than any other GaaS titles, you’d expect that immediately booting into the game you would be tasked with going on a new story mission and whatnot to unlock and play through as the Joker to showcase what he’s all about.

Well, that’s not the case, not even close. Instead, you’ll get greeted with a locked mission telling you that you need to reach episode rank 35 to play it. This is the “story” quest, which is a reskinned Brainiac Green Lantern boss fight that is slightly more challenging than the original since it has enemies now. 

Outside of that, in order to reach episode rank 35, you have to replay the same old missions from the original game that have some slight changes you’d likely not even realize. There are some “new” incursion missions, which are just the other normal missions that weren’t incursion missions before, but it’s the same content nonetheless.

Between all of that? Well, in terms of story, nothing. There’s no narrative arc here to take you through ranking up, no story missions to really explain why we have to save the Joker, or to show off what he’s even capable of. There’s basically nothing. You do get a cutscene when you unlock him, but it’s not even rewarding knowing that the only thing left to do is level him up by replaying the exact same missions over and over. There’s no new content to even bother using him with.

The Joker just exists in this world, adding little to no value to the narrative. Nothing gets pushed forward. There are no consequences or anything in the world that tell you what saving the Joker actually did or how he helped the cause. Characters barely even have a reaction to him, especially Harley, who just shrugs it off. I get it, she’s over the Joker, but come on, for as long as he’s been dead, seeing him again should have provoked some sort of reaction. Instead, she just shrugs it off with a “been there, done that” vibe and moves on. Again, he just exists in this universe, and in ours, like our real-life one, he is just there to add more monetization to the game. 

Speaking of what else is just there, the world has changed a bit in this season. Instead of the standard destroyed Metropolis we got in the base game, we now have that, only with Joker decorations planted everywhere. They’re only decorations, like a game doing a Holiday event and having a map in theme with that holiday. Sure, it’s cool at first, but it’s still the same map. The incursions are no different; they’re the same, just Joker-themed. 

For a game based around the multiverse, it sure lacks the imagination to play into that. Why would an alternative version of Metropolis, a version that has had its own heroes and villains, be entirely themed on Joker? There’s a story, and you can probably assume that the Joker just turned this place into his personal playground, but that’s not explained and is, therefore, headcanon. You’d think there would be some story to the degree that we got of Lex Luthor from the main campaign, venturing into the Joker’s universe and basically learning all there is to him and such, and giving the squad a real reason to break him out. 

I know they explain why the current universe Metropolis is themed after the Joker, which makes things funnier, as he was able to renovate an entire city without the Suicide Squad coming into contact with him once. Not only that, but they also break free of Brainiac multiple times, and yet stronger-willed heroes and other enemies can’t? That’s just being convenient for the plot’s sake, and not in a good way. 

I know that’s all nitpicking, but it also shows how barebones and rushed this all feels. There’s no real thought, at least from a player’s perspective, put into this season, and it is the first of maybe many; that’s not a good sign. 

There’s new loot to be earned, but that all goes back to the same old loop and replays the same rehash missions. There’s new loot, but nothing new to enjoy that loot on. What was the point of players even grinding out the endgame if the season itself does very little to reward them for that? 

A lot of us gave Square Enix’s Marvel’s Avengers crap, but at least the new characters there added, you know, real story content. Sure, the missions played similar to previous ones (they had some unique story ones, though), but in between all that, there was a story that was unraveling. NPCs would have unique dialogue that would evolve as you progressed, with even cutscenes and such playing out between missions to introduce the character and their motive, along with the new biomes. Stuff in there made sense to the narrative because of how much it all was meant to tie into it. That’s not me trying to say the game was good or anything, but at least you could tell the studio tried to offer meaningful content. 

That’s just not the case for the first part of this season for Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League. I know that might change for Episode 2, but as far as first impressions go, this is as barebones as it gets. I might not have liked the base game, but I will always give games another go, which is why I hopped on Season 1. 

The result feels like something ripped from the early years of GaaS, when most games offered no value and no thought into their content outside of wanting to sell cosmetics and battle passes. For all that Rocksteady made their seasons out to be, the opening act is certainly a whole lot of nothing. If Season 1 is supposed to be our first real look at what the rest of the seasons will look like, then I do think this game won’t make it past this year. 

(Editor’s Note: Opinion expressed here are solely of the author’s and does not represent the entirety of MP1st or its staff)