Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Hands-On Impressions

The game starts with the world falling apart and aliens everywhere so that you can get a feel for each of the four characters, before flashing back to how Task Force X (the official name of the Suicide Squad) was formed. The game takes place five years after the end of Batman: Arkham Knight, so everyone is in Arkham Asylum and Joker is dead.

Through shenanigans, each character winds up with a piece of equipment that helps you with traversal: jetpack, grapple, Speedforce gauntlet, and really big jumps. This is the main thing that sets Kill the Justice League’s characters apart from one another, because you can swap their weapons around however you like. Sure, King Shark begins with a Gatling gun, but if you prefer Boomerang to have it, go for it! But anyway, these traversal gadgets all basically do the same thing, and yet are distinct enough to make everyone feel unique. After all, apart from how you reach the top of tall buildings, a grapple is very different from a jetpack because you can hang in one place to shoot enemies with one or hover in a strafing motion with the other.

Since I mentioned guns, I might as well talk about gunplay — because there is a lot of it. You might think that King Shark is strong as heck, so surely he can punch and bite enemies! Well, you’d be wrong, because his melee attack is a knife, and he does the same amount of damage as everyone else’s melee attack. No, if you want to actually kill your enemies, you need to shoot them. Unless you want to damage their shields so you can shoot them, set them up for a critical hit from your gun, or recharge your own shield, because then you do need to melee attack them. Oh, occasionally you also have grenades! I always enjoy whipping grenades at enemies, unfortunately, they aren’t exactly as plentiful as bullets…

As I first assumed when the game title was revealed, the Kill the Justice League part of the title comes from the fact that the Justice League has turned bad, and it’s because of mind control. So, you’ll have to fight off Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, and Batman. It’d be weird to have two Batman villains as the protagonists and him not appear, right? But I mentioned that this is set five years after Arkham Knight, didn’t Batman get outed as Bruce Wayne and his house blew up seemingly with him in it? Yep!

The open world of Metropolis is fun to move around, and it feels similar to the city in Sunset Overdrive, especially with how there are so many enemies that you need to gun down. That said, there isn’t a huge variety in the enemies that you’ll face off against, except for the boss fights. But I’ll let you discover those yourself!