Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League underwent a prolonged development cycle lasting about seven years before its 2024 release, which was met with commercial and critical failure [1, 2, 3]. Warner Bros. pressured Rocksteady Studios to design the game as a live-service title emphasizing replayability and monetization, increasing demands on the developers [1, 2, 3].
The project's troubled production cost Warner Bros. an estimated $200 million, marking the release as a costly failure [2, 3]. Developers Axel Rydby and Johnny Armstrong, who worked on the game, described their experiences as deeply frustrating and exhausting under these conditions. Rydby, director from 2022, said, "That’s when I started feeling like I wasn’t making games anymore. I was following a spreadsheet, some elusive marketing-analysis spreadsheet that no one could present clearly. I kind of felt like this isn’t the gaming industry I wanted to work in" [1].
Armstrong recalled initial confidence after success with previous Batman Arkham titles but said the team struggled to adapt to live-service demands and meet tight deadlines, including six-month windows to fix bugs and add monetization features. He said, "We put all these hours in, but it didn’t feel like it was tangibly getting better. Everyone felt like they were having to run to stand still" [3]. Armstrong added, "I felt everything drained from me. I said, ‘I can’t do this again. I don’t know if I’m done with the industry, but I’m done.’ I could feel myself coming apart at the seams" [1].
Both Rydby and Armstrong have since left Rocksteady. They launched a Kickstarter for their new indie deckbuilding RPG, Secret of Circadia, seeking $11,000 in funding [1, 2].
