The rumour mill is full swing after several leaks were reported on by multiple outlets in the past week about domains that were claimed by Warner Bros. One of these was for ‘Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League’, which is supposedly Rocksteady Studios upcoming project. Warner Bros Games Montreal have been teasing a Court of Owls game since late last year as well.
Dylan Blight, Ashley Hobley and Ciaran Marchant discussed the new rumour mill and theorised about where this potential game could go in the latest episode of Arcade Couch.
Read on for the discussion.
Dylan Blight:
I’m very keen for just pretty much anything Rockstar, at this point.
Ciaran Marchant:
I’ll be more interested in the Suicide Squad [game] when I find out the exact lineup for THE Suicide Square.
Dylan Blight:
Harley Quinn…
Ciaran Marchant:
Well, it’s going to be Harley Quinn and Deadshot, but is like… Is Captain Boomerang going to be in it? Because I want Captain Boomerang in it, but there’s, you know–
Ashley Hobley:
Man Shark?
Dylan Blight:
Killer Croc?
Ciaran Marchant:
Yeah. Like these characters. I’m like, are you putting these – all the characters? In which, which iteration of the Suicide Squad are you popping into this?
Dylan Blight:
Yeah. That they could do their own variation, obviously. And the other big question I have — that’s the most important question I feel like a lot of people are kind of missing out on asking — is this not a continuation of the Rocksteady Batman universe? Because if it is, there’s a lot of questions and the implications to the overall lore, given how Batman: Arkham Knight finishes.
Ciaran Marchant:
Especially, with this. Is this going to be the same Harley Quinn from the Arkham games?
Dylan Blight:
So there’s no spoiler warning here. If you haven’t played these games at this point, I’m sorry. If it’s a continuation of the universe, it’s like, well, the Joker is dead. But that would also make sense as to potentially why Harley Quinn would be trying to turn a new leaf.
Ciaran Marchant:
Nah, I don’t know.
Ashley Hobley:
Why she’s trying to kill the Justice League?
Dylan Blight:
Maybe, but maybe she’s getting forced to, but she’s trying to turn the leaf at the same time. Do you know what I mean?
Ciaran Marchant:
I don’t know… That’s the weird thing, is that I actually would really like it to be that version of Harley Quinn because I think that version of Harley Quinn was, for me, was always very close to the Batman Animated Series.
Dylan Blight:
It was, yeah, that’s because the original Batman: Arkham Asylum game was written by Paul Dini. I mean, it was basically like: hey, let’s turn the nineties animated series into a bit more serious and turn it into a video game. And that’s what they did with Rocksteady.
Ciaran Marchant:
Yeah. And so that’s why I’d like to see that Harley in the Suicide Squad game, but at the same time, I’m like, “but that’s not really the point of what the suicide squad is, you know? It’s generally about characters who are being forced against their own will…
Dylan Blight:
Yeah. But to be honest, most, most Suicide Squad story, comic book stories, I’ve read that is actually interesting have nothing to do at what the Suicide Squad’s main mission is. Most of the time their main mission is something like ‘kill terrorists’ or some bullshit. One of my favourite stories was when they were tasked to stop the Riddler doing a whole bunch of fucked up shit. And it was from like a few years ago, but that was one of my favourite ones that stick out at the moment. And that was great. It was like a lot of drama to do with both the Riddler and then drama between the characters in the group. But it wasn’t like, “oh stop terrorist organization mission XXXX”, which is how the Suicide Squad started back in the eighties, or whatever.
Ciaran Marchant:
But can this game be an open-world game? Like the Arkham series?
Dylan Blight:
Yeah, fuck yeah.
Ciaran Marchant:
Is it just going to be Gotham? Is it just gonna be Metropolis? Is it going to be multiple cities? Is there going to be maybe a couple of smaller hub areas?
Dylan Blight:
Well, if it’s next-gen – the world’s open, you know that you can switch characters on the fly, no loading times, bigger worlds. Loading times don’t exist in the next generation.
Ciaran Marchant:
Well, assuming it’s being released this year… It’s like a, you know, it’s got to work on the current-gen system as well.
Dylan Blight:
What are you thinking over there Ashley? You look like you have something big on your mind.
Ashley Hobley:
Yeah. I’m trying to think. Maybe it’s like, you know, there’s a hub where they all stay in captivity and then they obviously get sent out on separate missions. I suspect that’s probably going to be the way it’s going to go rather than some big open world, but we’ll be able to switch between different members of the Suicide Squad. The other thing to mention, of course, is James Gunn, The Suicide Squad movie is coming out August next year. So I would suspect this would come out before that movie.
Ciaran Marchant:
Don’t want to distance yourself too much?
Dylan Blight:
Yeah, that was what I was going to say. You can not put it too close or else people are going to assume it’s a movie tie-in. You can try and bounce off the promotional material of the movie and all the games to help promote one another. I’d say this needs to come out like three months prior or at a minimum kind of thing. So, May-June 2021?
Ciaran Marchant:
Suggestion: Suicide Squad, BioWare style gameplay. We go back to the main holding area of a cell. There’s some like relationship stuff. You have some bonding missions, you know?
Ashley Hobley:
You create your own character to be part of the squad. Possibly. That can be pretty dope.
Dylan Blight:
No, I ain’t gonna do that. People won’t care as much. You want to play as the actual characters. People will want to be Harley.
Ciaran Marchant:
Yeah. But you know, romance, all of it. Romance Killer Croc. Everybody would love to do that.
Ashley Hobley:
On the universe topic though. I think it will be its own separate universe.
Dylan Blight:
I don’t want that at all.
Ashley Hobley:
Because then if it’s not part of that, they can actually kill the Justice League and then potentially the ramifications of them killing the Justice League would mean something.
Ciaran Marchant:
I don’t think they’d ever killed the Justice League. That’d be silly for me.
Ashley Hobley:
Have you read Injustice?
Ciaran Marchant:
I’ve read injustice, but that’s not the Suicide Squad doing it. Thinking about the Suicide Squad VS Superman, I’m finding it very hard to believe.
Ashley Hobley:
Really? I watched The Boys, the TV series from Amazon. It was very popular and that’s about a bunch of nobodies’ taking on Superman.
Dylan Blight:
No, one’s heard of it, Ash.
[Editors note: /sarcasm – watch our review discussion on The Boys: Season One]
Ciaran Marchant:
It just seems difficult for me to see that because none of the Suicide Squad has those larger-powers or abilities.
Ashley Hobley:
That’s why it’s going to be cool to do it because it’ll be really hard, Dark Souls type fights.
Dylan Blight:
You won’t touch it if it has that.
Ashley Hobley:
Okay. Maybe not Dark Souls. Because then I certainly won’t touch it, but there’s definitely kryptonite in this universe and it just takes a minute to be like “okay, let’s get the suicide squad. Get your hands on this.”
Dylan Blight:
Ring Lex Luther up?
Ashley Hobley:
And you’ve got to do it before you fight Superman, you got to stash it, the green stuff in a secret pocket.
Dylan Blight:
Um, so then like the other thing, just to quickly touch on – I had this random thought before about the Batman game, the WB Montreal one. This entire time we’ve been thinking about this game, that you played as Batman, right? What if the Court of Owls game is about you actually just playing a Talon?
Ashley Hobley:
No.
Dylan Blight:
What do you mean “no?” You shut me down so fast on that!
Ciaran Marchant:
Wasn’t the rumour we’re going to be this young man. This was like year one, Batman?
Dylan Blight:
Well, that’s the comic story. The comic storyline is early Batman. It’s not actually ‘Year One,’ because they did that later, but it’s still early Batman in the storyline.
Ciaran Marchant:
It could be that, it could be that. It could also be Dick Grayson!
Ashley Hobley:
Well, the rumour is that it’s going to be the Batman family.
Dylan Blight:
Yeah. You can switch between them all, I know… But I’m just saying, I want to chuck it out there, even though you all just shut me down, that I would actually be open to a game where you’re playing as a Talon from the Court of Owls. There’s a potentially interesting story there.
Ciaran Marchant:
No. Court of Owls, but Batman Beyond.
Dylan Blight:
No. How about this – Batman game? Batman Beyond.
Ciaran Marchant:
Also brilliant.
Ashley Hobley:
How about we play a part of the game as Batman and then we play the next part of the game as a Talon?
Dylan Blight:
And then we got up to the future timeline and we play as Tim from Batman Beyond!
Ashley Hobley:
Yep. People will love it.
Dylan Blight:
Just jump all over the place. Love it. Because I’ve been waiting for a good Batman Beyond game since that PS1 game and they haven’t delivered so I feel ripped off.
Let us know your thoughts on the rumoured Suicide Squad or Batman games in the comments section below.
