Kill The Justice League has been out for over a month and ratings, user reviews, and player numbers paint a grim picture.
Despite working with the well known DC Comics licence, and releasing the game on all formats, Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League hasn’t done nearly as well as developer Rocksteady and publisher Warner Bros. wanted.
The live service game was described as falling ‘short of our expectations’ and even though free downloadable content, including Joker as a playable character, is coming at the end of the month, it might just be too late.
According to player numbers, review scores, and fan opinion, Rockteady’s live service gamble has proven to be a complete failure.
Kill The Justice League didn’t get off to a great start, as the game was taken offline less than an hour into early access because it launched with a bug that though players had already finished the whole game.
The biggest problem though is that there simply haven’t been many people playing the game, at least on Steam where the stats can be tracked. Kill The Justice League peaked at 13,459 players the day after release, according to Steam Charts, and never went up from there.
That number has nose-dived since then and this previous Sunday only 579 were playing the looter shooter on PC, that’s a 95% decrease in just over a month.
Rival live service game Helldivers 2, which came out a week later, has done much better, peaking at 458,208 players at one time and 431,621 logging in to democratise space this previous Sunday.
Poor reviews haven’t helped either, as Kill The Justice League sits on a score of 60 out of 100 on Metacritic, while user reviews rate it ‘generally unfavourable’ with 3.6 out of 10.
‘Not worth $70. Story is underwhelming but gameplay is somewhat fun. No idea what Rocksteady was thinking making this a live service game,’ said Rico on Steam.
‘Not worth $70+. Gameplay becomes repetitive. I currently can’t play solo due to a bug that only allows me to play when others invite me to their server. Just not worth the hassle, wait till the bugs are fixed and it’s on sale,’ said TonyTabasco.
Another reviewer on Steam enjoyed the game but wouldn’t advise buying it at full price:
‘I went into this knowing the game’s bad reputation and I completely understand a lot of people’s complaints (especially about the story) but I’m not going to lie, I had a lot of fun playing this game, the combat is snappy and the movement feels smooth, but if you’re playing this expecting it to be anything like the Arkham games, you will be let down,’ said Ace.
Despite being made by Rocksteady, the developers of the highly acclaimed Batman: Arkham trilogy, fans have always seemed apathetic to the concept, especially given that it’s a live service game.
Warner Bros. has even doubled down and said it wants to make more live service games in the future, despite this failure and the success of the purely single-player Hogwarts Legacy.
Many live service games have managed to turn things around after launch but if Kill The Justice League manages to do that it will be one of the most surprising comebacks in gaming history.
Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, and follow us on Twitter.
MORE : Suicide Squad has less players on Steam than Gotham Knights and Marvel’s Midnight Suns
MORE : Helldivers 2 vs. Skull And Bones – the cost of failure for live service games
MORE : Why our Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League review will be late
Follow Metro Gaming on Twitter and email us at gamecentral@metro.co.uk
To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here.
For more stories like this, check our Gaming page.
Sign up to all the exclusive gaming content, latest releases before they're seen on the site.
0 Comments