Publisher Warner Bros. Interactive has once again delayed Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, according to a new insider report. While this claim has yet to be officially confirmed, it comes from the same source that previously correctly predicted the Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League release date is being pushed to 2023.
DC Comics has been promising a Suicide Squad game for nearly 15 years at this point, whereas its parent company first teased it at the end of Batman: Arkham Origins, a 2013 action adventure developed by WB Games Montreal. After that particular project was reportedly canceled by 2016, Rocksteady Studios announced Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League four years later.
After already delaying the new Suicide Squad game once, WB Games has reportedly now done so again, Bloomberg reports, citing an insider familiar with the matter. The publisher last publicly said that Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League will release May 26. This new postponement will reportedly see the game launch later in 2023, presumably in its second half, given how Warner Bros. does not appear to have set a new release date target internally as of March 9. The delay will presumably become official shortly after that happens, as postponing a previously announced release without a new date this close to launch would be unlikely to sit well with fans.
Fan backlash is understood to be the main reason behind this internal delay. After Sony's February State of Play broadcast revealed Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League DLC plans, many consumers took online to criticize the game's seemingly aggressive monetization and always-online requirement. The fact that this newly reported delay has yet to be paired with a new release date target increases the likelihood that some of those controversial elements might be reworked, i.e., that Rocksteady is currently looking into how long that would take.
In spite of the public backlash stemming from the game's February showcase, some DC fans still have high hopes for the Rocksteady Studios' next project. Not least because Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has Kevin Conroy's Batman, thus already securing a footnote in history as the final voice acting performance of this character by the legendary voice actor, who passed away in November 2022 at 66. His illustrious career also included many collaborations with game developers, dating back to The Adventures of Batman & Robin, a 1994 action-platformer series for the Sega CD.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is in development for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X.
Source: Bloomberg