Rocksteady kicked off its first season of post-launch content for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League back in late March, adding a new ‘Elseworld' to the game, along with a new playable character, The Joker. This was referred to as ‘Episode 1' of the first season, with a second act to follow six weeks later. Unfortunately for whatever fan base that still remains, Rocksteady has not provided any updates on when the second half of the season will drop.
One of the biggest problems new studios often run into when jumping into the live service market for the first time, is communication. We've seen a number of live service games flop over this, as a lack of release dates and roadmaps often lead to players losing confidence in the studio's ability to maintain the game long term. Rocksteady has already lost a good chunk of its player base since launching Suicide Squad months ago, but a few hundred players still regularly log into the PC version of the game, as shown by SteamDB.
Now Rocksteady has been posting things like new items that will be added to the game with the second half of the season. However, a release date remains illusive. As pointed out by Forbes, the first season kicked off on the 28th of March, which would mean that the next seasonal update should have dropped on May 9th, but so far, Rocksteady has not made any firm announcements.
Combine this with the fact that the game was labelled as a disappointment by WB leadership at the company's most recent earnings report, and we have to wonder whether or not Suicide Squad will even finish out a year of content updates. Given that the game has already led to a $200 million hole on the books, I wouldn't be surprised to see future development plans cancelled, or at the very least, drastically reduced in scope.
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KitGuru Says: Earlier this week, we heard that Rocksteady had ‘chosen' to go down the live service route on its own accord. However, I would be quick to point out that WB executives have been calling for more games in this direction for a long time now. If the leaders aren't going to greenlight a new single-player game, but would greenlight a live-service, then whose idea was it really? Ultimately though, all of this may be a mute point. If Rocksteady can't deliver the type of money-maker their overlords demand, then in all likelihood, they will be shut down or sold off.