Where is our Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League review? Be wary of the state of launch

So we haven’t done one of our “where is our review” posts in a while, because frankly, we generally get copies of AAA games on time. Although there have been bumps in the road every so often, most gaming publishers want people to try out their games early, from the press to content creators, to any number of other folks in this modern media landscape.

So why does no one seem to have Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League? I don’t really need to spell it out, but just in case: consider waiting on reviews for this one (from whoever you get your opinions from).

The lack of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League codes is not only worrying, but strange

In the weeks leading up to the game’s February 2, 2024 release date (hey, that’s soon!), we’ve heard more and more about how press outlets are not getting code. We typically have issues with sorting WB due to our historical criticism of the publisher’s handling of…well, you name it…but it seems like every other major outlet also does not have access to the game in any capacity.

IGN’s Destin Legarie even shared his frustrations this past weekend, noting that his negative preview (you and practically everyone else’s!) could have led to a lack of access, but it goes deeper than that. Legarie contends that the game’s sponsored stream over at IGN had major quality control issues (like characters straight-up not showing up in cutscenes), and alleges that community managers (CMs) deleted comments critical of the game. Many of my peers are in the same boat, and no one I personally know has had access to the game prior to the early access launch. We went through a similar process with Gotham Knights.

Well, the worrying was warranted!

So I’ve described the confusion leading up to launch, but said launch isn’t going swimmingly either. The official Suicide Squad game social accounts have shared that “a number of players are currently experiencing an issue” where “full story completion” is granted after logging in. Great start! An emergency maintenance period is already underway, and folks are reporting that even the offline version of the game is impacted.

While we’re perfectly content waiting this out and playing the game alongside everyone else, it just goes to show the importance of early access. It allows folks to be the canary in the coal mine, providing a watchdog-esque role so people don’t buy a $60 (or more) broken pile of code, with context for questions such as “Is there offline play?” and the like.

Naturally, WB will get the game back in a workable state (to avoid a lawsuit at the very least), but how workable will it end up being? Stay tuned!