Was Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Created by Focus Groups?

[Winter]

I know that sounds odd but I couldn't help but notice how so much of this game is so surface level writing I had to wonder if it was being made by a very specific sort of focus group.

Look at the game and how it presents itself, it's an anti-superhero game at a time when people are saying they're sick of superheroes, features an evil Superman which has been overused to death, is a live-service game which game studios have been insisting has been a top demand by gamers (no their not). Is a sequel to a highly popular series (the Arkham Series), briefly mentions the highly popular Harlivy ship, is clearly trying to ride on the popularity of James Gunn's The Suicide Squad film and is yet again a Suicide Squad Adaptation trying to turn the Squad into a Anti-Justice League that deals with League level threats.

On top of that despite it's anti-superhero stans it's also clearly trying to ride the popularity of the Multiverse craze and shared universe popularity.

Combined with the clearly lazy writing, the clear attempt to make the humor has invasive as possible which is clearly trying to emulate the same sort of comedy of the MCU I have to wonder if the pitch meeting for this game was the higher-ups going to the developers giving them a list of things they were told was popular and said "Turn this into a game."

Because it really feels like that, this feels like a game made by committee which left the people who actually had to make the game the impossible task of making this into something people would actually want to play with the main marketing gimmick basically being "Now you get the chance to murder your childhood heroes."

[stryke]

Oh boy, this is a whole thing, and it gets pretty ugly in the whole online culture wars.

Tread ye lightly, and I'm going to try and lay this out without giving credence to some people who are just the worst. This is also an outsider view as I'm really not someone down in the trenches. More I've picked up on this from other sources.

Basically the writing to a greater or lesser extent depending on the different sources I've seen was consulted on by a notorious in some circles company that helped to ensure the characters, themes, and dialogues were suitably... dang it, what word to use that's the least inflammatory, okay let's go with 'fitting to the current times' and leave it at that.

I'm guessing that's the kind of process where a writing team doesn't have confidence in their own work, and so feels the need to employ such outside help is going to lead to exactly the kind of vibe that you're picking up on.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

So, DC wanted to make a Suicide Squad game as early as 2010, which is closer to Asylum's release than anything else.

Rocksteady announced they were picking up where the development had been iced, and this was in late 2020.

Live service was announced in early 2023.

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DC knew that the Avengers had an edge on the Justice League by terms of conflictive protagonists, so Suicide Squad is their answer to that.

Rocksteady probably took on Suicide Squad as an IP during bleak times of lockdown and shelter in place.

The post-Covid economy probably influenced the game to be live service, that and/or Gotham Knights signaled that a non-Arkham game didn't have enough staying power to live up to the Arkham game sales.