- Suicide Squad received a huge delay last year.
- Rocksteady has spent time removing Gear Scores from the game during this period.
- The idea behind this decision was to remove arbitrary numbers, leaving more room for freedom and synergy in builds.
Suicide Squad is one of the biggest superhero games of 2024. Created by the team behind Batman Arkham, it shares the same DNA, further elevated by over seven years of development.
Despite a promising reveal, reactions to the game’s live service elements were mostly negative. This led to the team delaying Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League last year, spending much of the added development time removing Gear Scores.
Why it matters: Looter games like Destiny place a lot of emphasis on gear stats and scores, immersing players in the loop of constantly finding new and better gear. Falling in the same genre, Suicide Squad was expected to follow a similar formula.
Over on Discord, Rocksteady recently hosted a special Q&A for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.
The developers asserted that gear scores and similar systems were in place until recently. However, the team’s recent efforts were focused on removing these systems to encourage more player freedom. Rocksteady said:
“One of the biggest changes we’ve made over the last year is to remove Gear Score.”
Players are now free to craft their builds without the need to fear meaningless gear stats. No longer will level creep render an early-game Legendary weapon or gear piece useless. The Rocksteady developer explained:
“Players who find a legendary early on can use it without fear.”
For some, a gear score is just an arbitrary number, while others extensively hunt for items with high scores to make the perfect build.
Though Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League will be light on this element, it will retain the beauty of experimenting with various builds. According to the developer, Rocksteady’s approach is more about gear synergy in builds instead of bigger and better numbers.
Still, despite the many changes, recent reception has been far from positive. Following negativity from media previews, Rocksteady lifted NDAs to receive some positive thoughts from Alpha players.
This has brought mixed results, with some criticizing the game while others claim to be pleasantly surprised.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League appears to be in a complicated position. Rocksteady has clearly missed the live service hype train, but the studio is desperately trying to salvage the game.
Amid these decisions, it isn’t surprising that Gear Scores were removed, but we can’t help but wonder if this will be enough to convince the masses.
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