Summary
- Rocksteady has been hit with fresh layoffs after Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League's underperformance.
- The game's poor sales reportedly led to the studio's QA staff being cut by half back in September.
- The new layoffs extended to Rocksteady's programming and artist teams ahead of Suicide Squad's final update.
Rocksteady, the developer behind the Batman: Arkham series and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, has just been hit with another round of layoffs. 2024 was a difficult time for Rocksteady, as the studio’s most recent title, the Batman: Arkham spin-off Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, was met with a mixed reception at release and only grew more divisive as the game’s post-launch DLC rolled on. Eventually, Rocksteady announced that it was no longer adding new content to Suicide Squad after one last update in January to wrap the game’s storyline up.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League was a costly title for both Rocksteady and parent company WB Games, with Warner Bros. Reporting that the game failed to live up to sales expectations back in February. Several months later, Rocksteady was hit with a large number of layoffs to its QA department, in part due to Suicide Squad’s poor performance. Roughly half the department was let go, shrinking it from 33 employees to 15.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Needs to End With a Serious Bang
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is drawing to a close this month, and despite its rough reception, it ought to finish strong.
Sadly, this was just the beginning of Rocksteady’s layoff troubles, as Eurogamer recently reported that the studio suffered another round of staff cuts just as 2024 came to a close. More QA employees were impacted, as well as members of Rocksteady’s programming and artist teams. Half a dozen impacted workers spoke to Eurogamer about how they were recently let go, choosing to remain anonymous to protect their future careers. Warner Bros. Has yet to comment on these layoffs, just as it was silent about September’s round of cuts.
Rocksteady Lays Off More Suicide Squad Employees
Rocksteady isn’t the only studio seemingly impacted by Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League’s underperformance. WB Games Montreal, the developer behind 2013’s Batman: Arkham Origins and 2022’s Gotham Knights, also reported layoffs in December, with most of them supposedly being members of the quality assurance team who supported Rocksteady in the development of Suicide Squad’s post-launch DLC.
The last of this DLC was launched on December 10 and added former Batman: Arkham Origins boss Deathstroke as the fourth and final additional playable character in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League’s roster of anti-heroes. Later this month, Rocksteady will release one last update for Suicide Squad, and it isn’t clear what the studio will do after that. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League seems to be ending as a dark mark on Rocksteady’s otherwise polished resume of beloved DC-based video games, as evidenced by the major layoffs left in the ill-fated live service title’s wake.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 59 /100 Critics Rec: 20%
- Released
- February 2, 2024
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Strong Language, Violence
- Developer(s)
- Rocksteady Studios
- Publisher(s)
- Warner Bros. Games
WHERE TO PLAY
Play as the Suicide Squad to take down the World’s Greatest DC Super Heroes, The Justice League. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, is a genre-defying, action-adventure third-person shooter from Rocksteady Studios, creators of the critically acclaimed Batman: Arkham series.
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 4
- Multiplayer
- Online Multiplayer
- Franchise
- Suicide Squad
- Number of Players
- 1-4
- PC Release Date
- February 2, 2024
- Xbox Series X|S Release Date
- February 2, 2024
- PS5 Release Date
- February 2, 2024
- Platform(s)
- PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S
- Genre(s)
- Action, Adventure, Open-World
- How Long To Beat
- 10 Hours
- OpenCritic Rating
- Weak
