STACK #232 February 2024

GAMING FEATURE

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The long-awaited Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is with us this month, bringing a story that sees the good guys – Batman, Superman, Flash, and Green Lantern - go bad, and the bad guys – Harley Quinn, Captain Boomerang, Deadshot, and King Shark - go sort of good.We had a chat with Ben Schroder, the lead script writer of the project at Rocksteady Studios, about all the cool stuff that we’re in for. Words Amy Flower TURNING THE TABLES In the same way that our Batman: Arkham games tried to capture the feeling of being the Dark Knight, it’s been really exciting to be able to see how this squad of seemingly mismatched misfits can take us in all kinds of different directions with how they play. They’re such unique characters, so even the play styles between each squad member feel very different. On paper, it doesn’t seem like a very fair fight. What assists will our Suicide Squad members have in combatting the powers of the Justice League members? Obviously, Amanda Waller has seen potential in each member of the Squad: Harley’s adaptable, Deadshot’s a professional, Shark’s a very

intelligent shark, and Boomerang’s a survivor. And with Waller’s direction, they’ll use those talents to steal, bully and stumble their way into a plan. There’s a 'getting the gang together' aspect to the story where we bring in some familiar and new faces to help the Squad with their suicide mission. From a gameplay standpoint, that means recruiting new villains and preparing the squad. You have quite a DC pedigree at Rocksteady.What learnings from creating the Arkham series have helped in bringing us Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League ? At the heart of the Arkham games was the experience of being the Batman, and we took the same approach with asking: what’s the fantasy of playing the villains? There’s a sense

So, how much fun was it playing around with this role reversal of goodies and baddies? Flipping the heroes and villains in the DC Universe was super, super fun. We spent a lot of time exploring how to draw out the threatening elements of the heroes and the positive aspects of the villains, without taking away from who they essentially are. Of course, the Squad don’t really see themselves as good guys – they’re invested in fighting the heroes anyway and have no choice because of the bombs in their heads! We also worked hard on finding the right tone. That meant getting to play with some very dark moments, but also tapping into the

humour that comes from having these very different characters bounce off each other. On the design side, the fun for us as a team was taking the characters that make up our Squad and reflecting that in gameplay. That’s what Rocksteady have always been known for.

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