Don't fall for the new 'Suicide Squad' marketing...

honestly I have tried to be positive when it comes to Suicide Squad kill the Justice League I don't dislike the studio in fact I really love the studio it's rock steady one of my favorite devs in the history of gaming they made Batman Arkham City one of my favorite games of all time full stop but I'm going to call it like I see it and frankly when Suicide Squad kill the Justice League was revealed it didn't have that same magical dark grittiness of of an intense narrative that Batman Arkham Knight or city or Asylum had instead it felt like game crafted from the ground up to satisfy an executive within Warner Brothers not the gamers that actually buy the product and over the last 2 years or so we have seen a steady drip of information about this game and every single time we've seen more it has grown less exciting like people get more and more burned out on it and start to mentally check out more and more and more which is the opposite of what should happen shocker as you release trailers you'd expect your fans to get more excited for the release but instead with Suicide Squad it's been the opposite the more we see about this game the less hyped people are which is a big big problem for Warner Brothers who have invested hundreds of millions of dollars into this game and Studio at this point now a couple of weeks ago I did a video on suicide squad kill the Justice League trying to give it a fair Shake but breaking down why I thought it was in some seriously bad trouble a lot of this is tied up in terrible marketing choices where they are trying to frame the game as what it frankly is which I appreciate the transparency but the problem is gamers are just not interested in a live service action looter shooter that is coming from a development Studio that we know is capable of putting together some amazing single player experiences it just leaves a bad taste in our mouths and comes off as what it frankly is which is a cash grab from Executives forcing a single player expert Studio to do a live service game and so in that video I break down why I think they need to approach things a little bit differently if they want to get people relatively excited for this game they need to come in and frame it differently they need to change the perspective sorry I just watched uh Ratatouille again for the first time in years with my little 2-year-old son and Anton iGo is like one of my favorite characters in all of Disney history and his whole speech about giving perspective I thought was brilliant anyway basically what I said is that I think they need to reframe this as a narrative game where they're like we're rock steady and we're all about focusing on the story and that's what we do well and that's what Suicide Squad kill the Justice League is and they need to stop focusing on the part nobody's interested in which is the lutter shooter elements and frankly the gameplay cuz every time we see gameplay and Gunplay and traversal and stuff the game looks worse and worse and worse and interestingly enough that is exactly what they did in this episode one of Suicide Squad Insider with which I guess is a thing that they've started doing now and it is basically a breakdown of things that should excite you for the game and it is their attempt to reframe this whole discussion and instead of focusing on the Gunplay and the live service elements reframe it as what it should have been from the first place which is a narrative game but here's the important piece to understand with all of this they are reframing the marketing approach because they had to it was clear that if they sold this to players as a liveaction looter shooter no one was going to be interested at all and the game would flop day one however if they instead sell it to players as a narrative game that happens to have some live service elements at the very least you'll get a good number of people that are willing to give the game a chance at its core it's still the same game regardless of how you frame it but in one situation nobody's interested in the game because you're selling it as a live service game and in the other situation people are going to give it a chance because maybe just maybe the narrative is so good that makes up for the live service crap and that's something I want you to be aware of as we go through this little tidbit with some highlights that I'm going to do because they're trying very very hard to make you kind of forget that this is a live service game when it is so don't get it twisted don't get confused this is still a live service looter shooter game but every little bitty thing you're going to see here would make you think it's not that and if you don't believe me just watch how they start this out we're going to start it at zero colon 00 we're starting at the very start and just wait for how long it takes them to frame this as a narrative experience first and foremost okay are you ready let's see let's count together where are we going okay and who are we killing already cinematic okay cool I'm darus sadan Studio director at Rocksteady Studios my name is Axel rby and I'm the game director here okay eyes up people let's go at Rock Steady storytelling and character depth are the core DNA of our game besides their names it's the very first thing they say is that they are focused on storytelling that it's core to their development process like that is how they start this whole thing off like again word for word at Rock Steady storytelling and character depth of accord of all game at Rock Steady storytelling and character depth are the core DNA of our game so they're saying of of our games or of this game like is is storytelling the core of this game or is it a looter shooter like which is it I don't think it can be both and this is where I just will warn people like you have to be cautious when you're watching like marketing campaign videos these things are crafted by by professionals who are very very capable and very intelligent and they're doing this to try and sell you on the product so if they do like the most barebones thing and then you just buy it hookline and sinker it's just working like you need to think about it critically shocker if you want to accurately interrogate reality it's the same thing that happened back with Starfield when I got so much crap for saying that the creation Engine 2 was not actually a new engine it was the cre engine just with a two slapped on it so that Fanboys would think that it was going to be totally different than what we had seen before and no surprise to anybody with two brain cells to rub together it didn't actually come off as a new engine it had just as many problems the same bugs that have been in their games for decades at this point were all still present because again if you thought about it critically it was clear this was not a brand new engine but some people want to be hyped so bad that they will buy in to any Market narrative just because their favorite Studio said it or because it came from a Twitter account associated with a console that they like and all I am trying to get people to do in these videos is to think for yourself think independent don't buy what the marketing team is telling you hook line and sinker maybe it's true maybe when they say this is the most realistic realization of this iname city ever crafted maybe that's real and accurate but you shouldn't just believe it simply because they said it there needs to be evidence supporting the claim a claim itself is not evidence of anything it's just a claim okay I'm going to pass out oh my God okay moving on twice the size of Gotham City in Arkham KN this is something you're going to notice a lot with this video in particular if you watch the whole thing through yourself you'll notice it very very clearly but I want to point it out here and that is that they also throw in constant references and mentions of Batman Arkham Knight Arkham City and Arkham Asylum they want to make it very very clear to people they are the same team that made those games this is the same company that did that so if you like those games you should give this a shot so they're trying to bring up that Nostalgia to sell you on this as well and if you go back and you look at previous marketing things they've done for the game up to this point they have largely ignored references to those previous titles and instead tried to sell it as its own Standalone thing but now they're actually trying to actively bring that in just a minute and a half into this 20 minute reveal thing that they're doing they're bringing it up and they will do it time and time again throughout the course of this video because again they're trying to find ways to sell you on it and what they know is a lot of people love the Arkham Series so let's bring that up and tie that back in here so that people associate the two together and maybe just maybe we can get them to buy it even though they were fans of a single player Batman like Adventure combat game now we're going to sell them on a looter shooter live service game they don't technically Al spill over but they might be able to get you to buy into it if they can convince you that they're going to be similar because they came from the same company it's big it's loud it's a battlefield it's a place built for verticality Mobility the unique Fusion of enhanced traval Gunplay and Mele weapons creating a super villain empowerment that we think is a totally original gameplay experience this is something that they do constantly through this presentation as well and that is to focus on traversal and movement that seems to one of the main selling points for this whole gameplay system that they've developed and initially I was honestly confused as to why they were spending so much time focusing on traversal of all things but then I realized it's because frankly there's just not a lot else to focus on you know in this case you can talk about like Gunplay you can talk about those types of enemy Generations or boss fights and things but you run into problems regardless of which one of those you choose to engage with if you talk about Gunplay people are going to get burnt out very quickly because again every time they've shown Gunplay thus far people have a negative reaction to it so they don't want to do that and instead they're like what other gameplay things can we show well there's traversal so we can move around here but notice they're just showing footage of you swinging through an empty City and like in this case jumping towards some enemies but the moment you actually start to approach the enemies they cut away to just running around because again every time they've shown any lick of combat people are reminded that this is just a live service looter shooter and they mentally check out out it's why honestly it can be really really fun to dig into these videos and ask yourself why they're showing some things and not others why they're revealing some things and not other others why they're focusing on some and not others and you know even then there's still surprising things like if we just zoom in to this little bit down here look at how horrible that looks like what are these textures what what is the like poly count on these objects off in the distance like what what are we doing it's just insane in terms of consistency sometimes this game looks amazing and other times it looks like a PS2 game it's really really weird and if somebody thinks I'm being nitpicky with like looking at low poly or low quality textures and stuff almost any instance of the game while they're playing it and running around you can pause it and see textures that are not popping in properly you can see models that aren't loading properly I would be concerned about performance and and Technical quality here like if I just Freeze Frame like right here if we look at these few frames you can see that we're swinging through okay but like again you can look at extremely low poly objects on the ground you can see really fuzzy textures on the ground and this isn't the max quality that they allow you to stream this video in and like it's just surprising at how muddy everything can look in movement motion blur does a lot to cover it up sure but this is again compressed when you're playing natively you're going to see all of this stuff very very clearly so I'm already concerned about the technical performance of the game and it's not even out yet like this this is already a concern for me and that's not great but after a few minutes of showcasing different cutscenes and showing some stuff which honestly does look good I think some of these uh segments they show with like for instance this cutscene as they're going up the elevator and then exploring this little Museum this whole thing looks pretty good I can see why you might play this with friends and stuff it still is a little jarring to just have the suicide squad that each have their own like guns and everything is just focused on guns because again it's a looter shooter but you know I could see how playing this could be interesting at the end of the day it's still the same structure of a game as Avengers or as like a Gotham Knights type game if not a little more involved than Gotham Knights um like what is this what are these textures man I just it's so inconsistent I don't know if this is running on like a a base PS5 on performance mode or what's going on but the quality is so inconsistent here I'll tell you what but the point is the cut scenes I think actually look pretty good and they're very very smart to highlight those front and center and make that the center piece of this reveal cuz it's the one thing everybody can agree Rock Steady does really really well as the presentation goes on a little bit though we do get to see a lot more combat they start to show more of the traversal mixing with the combat and honestly it reminds me of like Sunset Overdrive mixed with Gotham Knights mixed with like an Xbox 360 shooter when the enemies die they drop like ammo packs and shield packs that are big glowing orbs and stuff I personally don't like the look of those floating orbs of ammo drops and shields I think they look very very outdated and again like a 360 game that's just me I will admit that though that's not necessarily going to be the case for everybody um but whatever and listen this next part that I'm going to show you it definitely can be construed as just like nitpicking and I want to be clear like I'm not trying to nitpick with this stuff but I think all of these little things that you might not even consciously be aware of add up into a pile of a bunch of little things and that pile is going to shift the needle much more significantly than one of these little bitty things is the game going to be bad because it has low poly water bottles as you swing through the air no like that's really not that big of a deal is it going to be a terrible game because in some cases like right here there's horribly lowquality textures on these brick walls and stuff like no that's that's not going to make or break a game does it look bad yeah it looks really really bad but is this going to be the difference between a game being like successful and failing honestly no it won't matter that much but all of these little things stack up and that's why I think it's fair to bring them up they have to win us over to the point where we buy their game for 70 bucks they don't start with that they don't default to us giving them money that's not how this should work like even if you're a fanboy of whatever company or or publisher or developer whatever you should never start with the assumption that you're going to just give them your money blindly because they did another thing you like they should always have to work to convince you to buy their product and that's why these things matter because we can present them to you and then you can evaluate how big of a deal it is to you it honestly might not be what I wanted to show you here was this little bit with Boomerang he runs up he warps over but I noticed one thing that just reminded me of the lack of attention to detail that is present in Suicide Squad kill the Justice League compared to the Arkham games which were known for amazing attention to detail in every facet of its design and that is just with this stupid little hot tub here you can see like this is supposed to be a hot tub on top of a roof at like a hotel or something and then these people have been converted into Brainiac little NPC grunt enemies that you're supposed to kill but as you run around and as this enemy goes into the water there is no response by the water nothing happens you see he just kind of Clips in there's not even like a splash there's no movement in the water it's just a flat water texture basically and the enemy just stands in there with no effect on the water whatsoever and again in movement you might not notice it if we rewind and play it you can tell like it's it's not super noticeable but these things add up like these little bitty things you will start to notice the more you play it and in this case when they're trying to sell you on the game and they're putting out these these uh videos that are basically just ads they're trying to blow past those little bitty things and focus instead on other things they think that will be more convincing and compelling to you and again the pool is a very small example of something that probably does not matter that much to 99.9% of players but I think it reflects an overall lack of attention to detail that was present in their previous work that is almost entirely absent from this game which is why it's disappointed so many people because we expected the standard to be maintained from Arkham Knight to this game because by the time this releases it will have been almost 9 years from Batman Arkham Knight a game which to this day still plays phenomenally well still looks fantastic and is technologically very very impressive and seamless in terms of traversal and exploration it's incredible to this day and then we're talking about this which a decade later almost a decade later is Str struggling to look like it belongs in this generation much less an improvement over the previous thing that they did and even little stuff like how empty the world feels this is something we talked about on stream today you notice as he swings around Metropolis the whole city feels incredibly dead there's some grunt enemies on the ground there's nothing going on over here it's all just Blank Space extremely empty there's nothing going on over here nothing going on anywhere some grunt enemies down there but there's just nothing and in this little trailer thing that they did they do explain why they say oh there's no citizens or civilians in the city because Brainiac killed them all or converted them into these grunt enemies okay they came up with a narrative excuse for why this is the case that doesn't mean that it's okay though or that it's a good decision for a video game just because you can narratively justify something doesn't mean that it will make for a good video game I said the same thing with death stranding back when that game came out there is a narrative reason why there aren't animals running around outside or why you don't actually speak to many humans when you're delivering packages there it's always like these awkward Holograms and stuff there is a narrative reason for that but it doesn't mean that that was the best option speaking to actual humans would be more immersive would be better than speaking to an awkward hologram that just kind of sits there and floats and it's like than thank you Sam Porter bridges for delivering this package it it's just a worse choice or in the case of animals Wildlife whatever not being present while you're out exploring I understand why they narratively explained it away the way they did but it does result in a world that feels very empty and dead compared to any other open world game that does have Wildlife at play so all of this to say you can have a narratively Justified design decision that's still a bad design decision as it pertains to a video game and in this case when we're talking about suicide squad kill the Justice League you have a big open world that feels dead because frankly everything is dead within it and while yes it's because Brainiac killed everybody it doesn't really matter because the perception of the player is going to be that the world is empty and dead and therefore not worth saving and when the world isn't worth saving why are you playing a game that tasks you with saving the world like this as your seeing it is everything the game has to offer in terms of the open world it's some big beautiful buildings sure but try to play any open world game with all of the NPCs not present like it's going to burn you out real quick and also I mean this is another example of like the low poly models off in the distance then they start to come in they start to pop in it's a little better but man yeah playing this on like a big TV or something those things are going to be very very very noticeable and maybe I'm just spoiled cuz I'm like making this video and looking at this on a big 48 in monitor but man I'll I'll tell you what if I'm noticing it here compressed in video and stuff playing the game natively it's only going to be more egregious and obvious like these trees come on man you guys did Batman Arkham Knight are you kidding me like what what are we doing what are we doing what are these things what are toes what are trees man what what are we doing this is what's really heartbreaking is that like this team is amazing this team is very very capable or at least it was and then to see the quality standard drop so far to see them just abandon the attention to detail that they previously held so highly it's just really really frustrating and frankly disappointing and that's still at the core of of everybody that I think has seen this reveal and all of these other trailers is just that this is an amazing studio that is frankly capable of a heck of a lot more than a big Bland empty world that you shoot purple enemies in and then you go and shoot purple weak points on tanks and that's it I mean they say that the game really picks up and the game is really defined by the boss fights against the Justice League members and maybe that is the case but naturally they're not going to really want to show us too many of those fights before the game comes out cuz I'm sure there's only like seven eight or nine of them and so they don't want to blow their load too early they don't want to reveal too much so they don't want to show the best part of the game before it comes out even but as of right now like every time we've seen the game play the part of the game that you're going to spend the most time engaging with it's less and less intriguing and this showcase frankly didn't do anything to change my mind on that yes swinging as Harley looks like it could be fun for 2 seconds but then you're going to realize oh I can swing through a city that's empty and dead to go and shoot purple enemies and hit purple weak points and then pick up ammo drops and shield drops and then rinse and repeat as I grind my guns up further and further because again this is a looter shooter this is a live service game this is about keeping you engaged for dozens if not hundreds of hours and it's not about the best world design it's not about the narrative it is about keeping you engaged for long periods of time because again is a live service game and that I think is perhaps very very important to remember is that this as a live service game is meant to keep you engaged for years not just for a 20-hour run of the campaign this has been designed for you to stay playing it through 2025 and into 2026 that's their goal with this so if you're looking at it and saying I mean I could see playing it over a weekend to get through the story but I don't really think I'll play too much of it that that for them is a a failure that for them is the worst thing you could say other than I'm just not going to buy it at all because this is supposed to be something you engage with long term and frankly nothing they've shown has made me go oh yeah I could see myself spending a lot of time engaging with that everything I've seen it's like I I would I'd want to stop playing this as quickly as I started and that's basically the whole video it's just showcasing it as a narrative game with some cool traversal and then it just kind of ends after showing a little bit of combat they are trying desperately not to show the live service elements not to show you the battle pass elements not to show you the gun customization because that has been roundly ridiculed by everybody but the moment you go to their website you can see Suicide Squad kill the Justice League whatever website this is it's like suicidesquad game.com or whatever and you can order or pre-order the full game get classic outfits and Rogue outfits on PS5 digital only because uh Playstation paid for some exclusive stuff and then what's included in the deluxe version the full game Justice League outfit so I guess you can put them in different outfits while you fight them three black mask notorious weapons so I guess just weapons skins I suppose because they've said the guns won't or the DLC and purchasable items won't affect gameplay I I guess um Squad Gold's weapon dolls I'm guessing like in in Call of Duty you can put the little trinkets on the weapon maybe that's what they're referring to there I'm not sure one battle pass token so you can get one free battle pass no shade color swatches digital only and then pre-order bonuses 72h hour early access classic outfits and Rogue outfits again PS5 only oh my God and this is delightful read this little part right here if you're listening to the video I encourage you to open up your phone and look at the screen right now look at this Warner Brother games May modify or discontinue online services with reasonable notice at any time that oh if that's not a red flag I don't frankly know what is they are putting on the pre-order page a statement saying they're allowed to discontinue support for their online services at any time bear in mind this is an always online game you have to be connected to the internet to play it at all uh which is is wild so they're saying they can discontinue online services including like battle pass plans and extra DLC that they announced or something they can cancel all that if the game does really really poorly and you can't complain cuz it's on the website this also means that additional playable characters that are supposed to be available post launch they can be cancelled and you can't complain about it they can just back out of that even though they're saying in the FAQ that they will support it you can just get out of it if the game is received poorly this is actually very similar to what redfall is dealing with right now because redfall promised more playable characters as well but it was received so terribly they had to spend all their time focusing on fixing it which they're sort of doing and now they're saying that 2024 is when they'll bring the first playable character addition to the game which I'll believe it when I see it but that's the same thing with Suicide Squad kill the Justice League they're able to come in and back out of all of that stuff at any time and you can't say anything because again when you pre-ordered it or when you bought it they made you agree that at any time they can back out of that stuff without consequence and other stuff that they've added to the FAQ such as you know asking for specific versions of the game so they say the PlayStation 5 and series X will run and Target 60 frames PC will just do whatever your PC can basically handle and this could explain why we're seeing some of the scaling and texture Poppin issues that we are seeing because they're targeting 60 whereas like Arkham Knight only targeted 30 so that could very well be part of the problem but beyond this you see all sorts of other stuff new content is planned they're going to have a battle pass after launch multiple battle passes of course um they have at least four seasons that they've talked about so far directly so at least four are on the docket and schedule and then in-game purchases they describe that they say no it won't have loot boxes but instead battle passes and basically take the uh Marvel's Avengers approach to monetization and listen like I I think that they are actively doing the thing I I suggested that they do if they want to stand a chance of winning some people over which is to reframe this whole thing as a narrative experience that has a live service component to it but it's still a narrative and that's what it is focused on and that's what they've started doing and I think they are finding some moderate success with some people some people are saying ooh actually the game looks pretty good now I'm actually pretty interested so for some people it's clearly worked but at the core at the end of the day this is still the same live service game we've been bashing since it was announced nothing has changed they're just changing how they Market it and sell it to you nobody as far as I'm aware has played the game yet and maybe it is the case that when you play it it is just honestly so fun it is like one of the best live service games ever because it's so fun and cinematic and the story is cool so it ends up just being an amazing amalgamation of all of it but we won't know that until people play it I fully don't expect to get to play it to be completely honest at this point I would not blame them if they didn't invite me to the events I would love to you know what if I went to the event and I ended up being convinced and I told everybody actually guys I was wrong it's amazing that would mean a lot more than some joeo you know that goes and checks it out but like again I I wouldn't be surprised if they uh they like no do not invite Luke Jesus Christ but again the point is we don't know how the game will actually play until we've played it of course the developers are telling us that it's amazing because that's literally their job is to sell you this game that's what the marketing team's job is is to sell this game to you and so we have to wait until we have independent confirmation of that and evidence pointing one way or another honestly at this point I'm a little weirded out that we have not seen gameplay preview events or anything like that and instead it's only been very carefully organized gameplay reveals like this uh maybe they've given access to like IGN to the game but you guys I'm sure can figure out how much weight I would put on that so I don't know I again would love to be convinced of this I would love to be one over but frankly at this point there's just not enough evidence in favor of Suicide Squad kill the Justice League to make me think that this is going to uh sort of buck the expectations that we all have levied against it at this point it has such a bad reputation and a stank around it they have to do a whole heck of a lot to win me over and win all of you over I'm sure and that's why even this video is still being masked down voted on YouTube people are just frankly not buying it and I'm sure there's some people who will play this and will have a good time I've spoken to a few people um on stream today that said they thought it actually looked pretty good after this and they will give it a shot in which case the marketing team did a great job and they are starting to win some people back over but to me it just seems like a brand new bow and some bright red lipstick put on on the same pig that we've been looking at for 2 years now it's no different it's just a little prettier now but again I'd love to be convinced otherwise Rock Steady Warner Brothers hit me up baby I'm available but you know what with that I'm going to call it my voice is going out um thank you for watching those of you who have been present on this channel know that this has been quite the week for the Stevens household so I just want to say thank you to all of you guys who watch subscribe support everything that I do watch the live streams or the live Channel where we post all the highlights and stuff or follow me on like Tik Tok and those places you guys are all amazing You Make My Dreams a reality and yes even though sometimes the dreams can have elements of nightmares intermixed um it all still is is an actual dream come true so just thank you and uh the support after what happened on Monday has been overwhelming and uh you guys continue to Humble me every single day so truly truly thank you and if you made it this far in the video I um am truly grateful so thank you I don't I don't know do you want some money do you want some cash I don't what do I do to say thank you I don't know but okay I'm going to call it there thank you for watching I love you all dearly and I'll see you in the next video hugs and kisses bye-bye

Channel: Luke Stephens

Views: 163,387

Keywords: luke stephens, Suicide squad game, Kill the justice league, Luke Stephens suicide squad

Id: nzJx_mK4kB4

Length: 33min 18sec (1998 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 18 2023