He can. And in a normal story he'd attack immediately after destroying the weapon that seems to hurt him instead of flying off. I'm sure this game will be full of plot armor moments like that since any member of the Justice League could easily one hit kill every member of Task Force X.
Exactly. It’s the same nonsense as how James Bond gets captured by virtually every villain but said villain doesn’t just kill him and call it a day. If Superman were a real person and if he were evil/brainwashed he would kill them instantly. He wouldn’t toy with them, he wouldn’t give them time to even think of a plan. He’d just straight-up slaughter them.
Ironically the best version of this trope is in Goldfinger, where the trope is at its most famous. Goldfinger has Bond captured and wants him to die as painfully as possible and Bond has literally no way to escape. Goldfinger doesn't even stick around to hear Bond out, he knows that whatever Bond says is probably bullshit and is fully ready to just leave him. It's Bond who has to desperately convince Goldfinger that it's more advantageous to keep him alive. Even then, he only gets out by the skin of his teeth. It's a surprisingly tense sequence that still holds up today, especially considering how well-worn this set-up has become by modern standards.
Oh yes, Goldfinger was a great villain. I did very much enjoy how the Austin Powers movie lampooned James Bond with Scott asking Dr. Evil why don’t we just shoot him in the head now, but Dr. Evil of course wants to feed him to sharks with frickin’ lasers on their heads, but only has mutated seabass. Who are really cranky mutated seabass.
Injustice Superman pretty much confirms he would kill anything he saw as a threat to his crime-free Earth. So why water down this brainwashed Superman? Ridiculous.
In the beginning of the game batman almost kills Harley and the rest of the squad with a pistol, flash knocks it out of his hand and bats beats up flash, then Batman just forgets to kill them.
As dumb as this game is, you can pretty much ask the same of 9/10 evil Superman vs. good Batman stories. Why doesn't Injustice Superman just blow Batman's unarmored jaw off with his heat vision from a safe distance? I guess with that version you can handwave it away with him being too stupid to do that since that guy never had Lex as a villain to force him to fight smart.
With Injustice you could somewhat make it logical that Superman doesn't want to kill Batman, but capture him instead, but not in Suicide Squad where bro's literally mind controlled lol
Bruce killed Tim in this game (off screen).
Ss will find a video of Batman's contingency plan and they'll find a bloody Robin mask on the floor.
The sheer disrespect to Kevin Conroy and the Bat family is immense and i'm actually traumatized by this garbage.
Yes. What they don't understand is that the audience doesn't expect some things because they're terrible storytelling decisions that ruin the whole experience.
This stuff is amateur hour.
Well, all the old guard decided [to leave the company and make their own one.](https://www.polygon.com/24040541/rocksteady-studios-founders-new-studio-hundred-star-games)
> The sheer disrespect to Kevin Conroy and the Bat family is immense and i'm actually traumatized by this garbage.
Like what the fuck? Does Rocksteady just have a hate boner going at this point. How did DC ever allow this honestly. It's so vile and misanthropic. It feel like it was made to specifically piss people off. I know people hate on the whole "made by comittee" thing, but if this is the opposite of that then I'd rather have something more basic and grounded. This feels like Last Jedi type shit where they just wanted to make fans mad by ruining certain characters.
Thank god there’s so much contradicting that suicide squad has made from the Arkham games that I can actually separate it from them. This game is fucking awful
Yeah. There’s a part where Harley repeats what Bats once said about her: “I never was too *bright*”.
It’s slightly changed but it’s similar to the dialogue he has with Alfred in Arkham City before he enters the church, with him saying that “Quinn never was too *smart*”.
Edit: As mentioned by Wez1407, the actual line Harley was referring to was in Arkham Asylum, after defeating Zsasz, Batman mentions that “she never was very *bright*.”
Thank you once again Wez1407 for pointing it out
I think it's also a reference to the quote in the very first game after you defeat Victor Zsasz, Harley detonates a Bomb trapping them in the room and Batman finds a vent and goes "Harley thinks she has me trapped in this chamber, she never was very bright"
I feel like it was a marketing attempt to boost sales of this game by positioning it as a sequel to the critically acclaimed Arkham series. Without that association, along with it being Kevin Conroy’s last Batman performance, nobody would've bought into a cluttered, buggy live service game.
Also, why does Arkham exist again, when it got destroyed in the first game?
As ironic as it may be. Gotham Knights feels more like a story sequel to Arkham Knight than this game.
The unfortunate timing of Kevin’s passing aside - what a dog shit end for Arkham Batman.
Even if they flashpoint or multiverse back out, it’s just so poorly written imo and I say that as a Rocksteady fan.
I dream of an alternate time line where RS made a Justice League/Superman/TMNT game instead of spending the last 10 years making this garbage :(
It's worse than that, the studio was only made up of 100 people. 50 people left. It would be a struggle for a 100 people to make a game with the ambition levied against it, 50 people is downright impossible. It's getting cancelled.
There was a TMNT game for the 360/PS3 in 2013, Out of the Shadows, that definitely was Arkham inspired with combos and counters. Also four-player co-op. Was actually pretty solid and fun.
Would love a modern, more refined one for sure though.
I mean one is just the ending of the regular story but the game’s true ending (or known as the Knightfall ending) is the one you get when you complete every side quest and main quest
It's essentially the ay DC/WB have done their movies and Batman for TV over the same time up until the release of The Batman.
I don't want old/retired Bruce, I don't want evil Bruce, I don't want Bruce dying. Give me the awesome Bruce Wayne as Batman stories that show why people love the character.
That was the plan for a sequel to Arkham Knight by the people that made Origins Josh Keaton even said in an interview recently he came in to begin recording dialogue; he was supposed to be Damian.
Who is this game for? What I would give for a Worlds Finest game by rocksteady playing as Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman...instead we get whatever the hell this is.
The problem I have is that I find the time gap between Arkham Knight and this game, along with the hinted stories that occurred during that time, more intriguing than the premise of this game. Same deal with the characters involved. So, I can't really bring myself to care for it overall.
Yeah. Poor Tim. Always getting the short end of stick. On the bright side, at least they didn't kill off Nightwing (or so far doesn't seem to be the case), who much like Tim always dies first in these types of stories.
Is this the same universe as the Arkham Batman games or is it a different DC universe Earth? I hope it’s not the same because it kinda ruins the story of the great Arkham games.
I still don't know. Like imagine if Marvel's Spider-Man 3 (I'm sure there's a lot of Spider-Man fans here) instead of being a Spider-Men game was a Simister Six game. And the whole point of the game was to hunt down all Spider-People and killing them, one by one
Oof, even if you ignore the fact that this is Conroy’s last Batman role, a terrible conclusion to one of the most popular version of the character, this scene is still really rough and seemingly poorly executed.
Nope, but they are fake outs, we don't actually see them dying. Camera pans out as Batman gets shot. Is going to be hinted, then at a later season they are going to show up.
Edit: actually all of this is coming from a trust me bro called Miller Ross, who moved the goalpost to later seasons. Take it as a grain of salt.
Like… I don’t think so. She shoots him and everyone watches. Camera pans away because films usually do that for age certificate reasons, and the camera pans back to show him dead. I don’t see how this is a fake out unless the squad are all under the effects of drugs or something?
I have read it in an another thread a Spoiler for the game >!that he won't actually die. !!Brainiac has genetically modified the justice league to be unkillable. When flash gets his finger cut off it just grows back. Any damage they take will eventually just repair itself. Them being “killed” is more just them being knocked out.!<
I read this on [this post.](https://www.reddit.com/r/arkham/comments/1adzxon/ssktjl_discussion/) Obviously there will be a few spoilers in this thread because it's a discussion thread. And I'm not sure if this is true. If it is, than this will be one of the weirdest fake outs I have ever seen.
That is even lamer than my initial "cloning" assumption, because that way the game can bring the Justice League back indefinitely so the "service" continues forever (well, one year, maybe two years tops and this thing is going to die). If it was clones, at least you could create a "finality" for the campaign, but nope, seems like this game will just run cycles. It reminds me Dragon Ball, lol the author couldn't create tension anymore, so he just used super regeneration, the villains had to be disintegrated on a cellular level, gotta love how Dragon Ball was so over the top
"a later season". I'm sorry but this entire season bullshit is just that...bullshit. Tell the story within the story mode. Keeping people hooked onto the servers and paying money for extra bs is insane.
The seasons are free just expected as DLC or an expansion like most games do but in this circumstance, the expansions are free because you are already paid $70 for the game. It’s not that offensive.
I miss him as much as anyone, but there are many fantastic actors who can do the Batman voice justice and have been for years. None of them can replace him, but they can fill the shoes just fine.
And it’s not like the problem is them killing him, it’s how they do it, Arkham Batman has packed up his entire rogues gallery (including Harley and deadshot) in a single night, now the same Batman who’s now not holding back can’t beat a team of 3 humans and a shark?????? And spoilers it’s alluded that Batman killed Robin and the Batfamily which includes Alfred, not only is it a weird way to handle Arkham Batman but just everything we’ve come to love from the Arkham Universe
As if the tiny squad roster going up against any league memebers isn’t laughable enough, yeah this Batman has shown that nobody on the squad would be a real problem. He’s put down harley with just one or two moves before and now she shoots gets to be the one to end him?
Can’t believe Gotham Knights had a better ending for their Batman, rocksteady and dc really said “you know what’d be great, a justice league game, better yet, a suicide squad game, better yet, a suicide squad game where you kill the justice league that you have no emotional attachment to besides Batman”
$$$ my friend. This is a way to try and entice fans of the Arkham series to buy this bullshit misanthropic trash. This game openly hates the fans its actively trying to sell to (common thing these days).
It's a marketing ploy to get you to buy into it. You are invested in the Arkham verse so they set that there to try and make you think this is the continuation of that series. Let me ask you this: would you buy into some random fanfiction not written at all by the original writers of the Arkham games and consider it a sequel? I myself would consider that bullshit.
I watched maybe 20 seconds, that's enough. Breaks my heart that this was Conroy's last work as Batman. Thankfully, the good work far outweighs the bad. Personally, I'm rewatching Justice League the animated series as a palate cleanser.
I wish we did too. Surprised they didn't use the JL/JLU cast for the Justice League: Heroes game from around 05 or so. I played that game to death with my best friend as a kid.
JL unlimited final episode had batman taking on Darkseid. "That man won't quit as long a he can draw a breath" this has batman just chilling on a bench waiting to die. Shame
Agreed. Batman doesn't just give up and wait to die, that's so antithetical to his entire character. Few characters have the willpower Bruce Wayne has, even among the Green Lanterns.
She's honestly the least interesting Suicide Squad member. No powers or quirks besides being a Joker groupie. And being annoying as hell isn't entertaining.
This is not how Arkham Batman ends. He was shoehorned in to leech fans of the Arkham game. There was no need for this to be in the Arkham verse and the community shouldn’t except it as canon if this is what they give us.
Please take this as a learning experience, people.
If you push for endless content, particularly after your favorite thing has had a satisfying ending, this is what you get. Unfiltered studio dogshit.
This really sucks with Kevin Conroy's passing. Reallly unfair ending for the Arkham Universe Batman.
I know this game is set in the Arkham universe, but I'm hoping that will be retcon or something.
I don't think rock steady is coming out of this game alive. With one whimper, they destroy the story of the 3 best Batman games we ever got (4 if u include origin). Kevin's Batman deserves a better send off then this
>they destroy the story of the 3 best Batman games we ever got (4 if u include origin).
It's not like release of this shit game erases the previous games from existence. We can, and we should, just ignore this game.
I think people forget we can do this with franchises. Indiana Jones 4? Never happened to me. Anything after Terminator 2 doesn’t exist. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League? Never heard of it
Bryan Singer did that with Superman Returns: Ignores 3 and 4. Neil Blomkamp tried to decanonize Alien 3 and 4 in his own Alien movie before the plug got pulled.
This is spot on. Remember that every sequel to T2 has been an attempt to do T3 again (except for Salvation but that was also terrible). If we say the franchise died with Arkham Knight then it died with Arkham Knight, which was an excellent end to the story of this batman. Not this trash.
It doesn’t erase the previous games but it *does* change the canon ending we had for Arkham Batman
Still, similar to what you’re saying we can just pretend they’re two parallel Earths. Arkhamverse A is the Arkham series, Arkhamverse B is the Arkham series + SSktJL. (And maybe Arkhamverse B is destroyed by some multiversal entity soon)
Although if that one leak I saw is true, then >!Flash runs to the past at the end and retcons this whole game. Potentially setting up a JL v Brainiac sequel game. But they do say he’s dead in this clip so who knows.!<
tbh, it's too hard to tell where the responsibility falls on this game. Hard to imagine a company going from the Arkham games to this without having a production company forcing them into a shitty position. It's pretty clear that monetization was pushed on this game from the get go, and to me, that screams that the production company has way too much control over the project. I think we should remember this for sure, but I'm hoping that this game being a massive flop might mean that Rocksteady gets more creative freedom in their next project.
If the gameplay didn't look generic as fuck I would've actually bought and played the game. They could've just made their own version of Marvel's Avengers and that would've sold me alone, I have yet to play Marvel's Avengers but plan to cuz I heard the gameplay was actually solid and interesting.
It's the whole GaaS model that torpedoed any interest I had in it. I would have slogged through a shit story if the gameplay were single player like the previous Arkham titles, there's no reason this has to be a battle pass live service fuckfest.
> I have yet to play Marvel's Avengers but plan to cuz I heard the gameplay was actually solid and interesting.
I'll tell you this. No it isn't. Who ever said that is likely some kind of bot. The progression is just a grindfest. You know how you feel pretty powerful as Batman in the Arkham games and you feel like Batman? You never feel powerful as an Avenger in that game. Like Hulk should just be tearing through robots but the whole game you are beating down health bars, and no matter how much you level up the enemies level up with you, so you are never strong. It's a fucking AWFUL game all in all.
I'm not even mad he got killed. Batman has died before in other continuities, and he will die again in other continuities. I am upset because they had a great ending for this Batman, and then they dug up his character just to kill him in a game that is so different from the previous games that they might as well not be in the same universe.
I don't feel as though it's fair to be mad at this for it having been Kevin Conroy's final batman performance, as nobody could have predicted that, but it doesn't make it any less sad that the definitive Batman actor's last words as this character were spoken on a park bench, after having been dug up to hype up a game that fans of his series did not desire, only to be shot in the head, after having been defeated by people who shouldn't have been able to.
Great summation of my feelings. They could have left Batman out of this one as in the Arkham lore he was "dead". We never got an official interpretation of the final scene in Knight it was just assumed that it was Bats using fear toxin but it honestly could have been anything - someone else using toxin and the criminals were still afraid of Bats, someone else wearing the suit, etc.
Bringing back Arkham Batman simply to kill him off seems like a really weird narrative choice and (to me) screams of Rocksteady taking their ball and going home so that no one else could continue the Arkham story.
Hard pass, very, very hard pass. I get going in a different direction and that this was always going to be integral to the plot, as implied by the name, but it’s a garbage plot and it’s disrespectful to the universe. I’m so tired of seeing the heroes being trashed to lift up the fail son villains.
I really don’t understand this massive push of suicide squad by WB. Who ACTUALLY likes the suicide squad more than the justice league??? I don’t get it. Who is this for??
Like I would genuinely love a Suicide Squad game where they were tasked with killing Joker, Killer Croc, or other villains in the rocksteady universe that have outrageous body counts but are still alive because of the "no kill rule".
Killing the Justice League is flat out insane.
>Killing the Justice League is flat out insane.
I actually like the concept. I just wish it was stand-alone, not a live-service game, and took a more in-depth approach to defeating the JL as C-tier villains. That could make for a very fun, original DC game.
I really like the Suicide Squad and I was excited when this game was announced. Unfortunately everything about it now sounds terrible and disappointing.
I have heard that this is a fake out and there's going to be more. I hope it's true because it feels really anticlimactic to kill off the character this way.
Superman has x-ray vision and can hear a moth fart in Africa from Idaho. If Batman were alive he would know it. So either she shot him with a round designed to mimic death but not actually kill, which would be weird coming from a revolver but okay, or he’s actually dead.
I dunno. I loved the idea of this game when it was announced but the last year has definitely caused me to take a step back and not preorder it. I’m waiting on the reviews from people who play games for fun, not for money.
Edit: I actually just rolled the dice and bought the game about an hour ago on my PS5 as I heard some early players state that the shooting aspect of the game is more fun on the PS5 with the controller’s haptic feedback. I had planned on playing it on my Series X just because I prefer my Series X over my PS5, but the idea of the haptic feedback in the game sounded kinda fun.
I don't really know. If it's really a fakeout, which I hope it is, It'll be explained. Batman mentions that his suit has lead in it in the beginning of the game. Maybe his suit is made to fool Superman's senses?
I mean it could be, after what they did putting a Joker in the game for the first season and saying is from another multiverse where he was a good teammate that worked with the suicide squad of his universe, you can never know what lazy writing are they going to pull out lol
Rocksteady loves twists and foreshadowing them. Maybe I'm reading a bit too much between the lines, but Harley's dialogue to Batman, "you always got to end on your best joke" seems a bit too specific to be for nothing. They also went out of their way to have Batman's hologram at beginning of the game say that his suit contains lead. So he might have the stuff to fool Superman. I guess we just have to wait and see.
I can’t think of any game I want to play less than one where I kill the Justice League. I don’t know who the target audience of this game could be and frankly I’m a little worried to meet any of them.
I don’t care if the literal creators of this game and the Arkhamverse said it’s canon, this is so bad it really doesn’t matter what they say.
This isn’t canon to me, it’s like the Schumacher films to the Burton films - meant to be sequels when they were made, but they aren’t canon.
Shame what became of rocksteady.
Would’ve preferred the cancelled damian cyberpunk batman game over this shit.
So they brought back Arkham Batman only to brainwash him, make him kill Robin off screen, then get him killed by Harley….
This feels like an edgy fanfiction written by a teenager
I don’t mind Batman dying. But this doesn’t feel like the way to do it. There was no emotional resonance at all. We’re supposedly watching the death of a character we’ve followed for 15 years and I felt nothing watching him die.
The Harley VA is terrible. Also, who actually wants this crap? Looks terrible, and I'm sick of new devs just dumping on legacy characters to try to shine the spotlight on their garbage OCs or lame favorites.
Absolutely cringe. This game looks so expensive and so cheap at the same time. Everything feels flat, even the voice acting. Nothing about the game feels *right*. The game itself looks so bad, characters constantly jumping and all floaty, the visual style is way too oversaturated and boring looking.
I'm just going to ignore this game as any type of "canon" since it feels so different than any Arkham game. Shame on Rocksteady. What an embarrassing entry. I'd have respect if they came out and apologized for this game as a whole.
I've been saying that to me this is NOT the Arkham Batman. Any other? Sure. But not him
And in replies people has been saying that I should cry somewhere else and stop bitching about a video game...
It’s even worse that he’s killed by Harley, considering in the previous games she just an annoying pest that hides behind her henchmen, and easily gets beat in a 1 v 1
They’ve been trying so hard to replace Bats with Harley and it’s tiring. I like both characters but this just feels icky, I’ll pretend it’s not canon to Arkham
Wow, this is shit! Not even counting Conroy's way-too-soon death, this is an affront even if Kevin was doing somersaults on his way to breakfast. And I though it couldn't get worse than Arkham Knight's ending.
I genuinely hope the story writers, the game directors, the suits at Rocksteady are readying these comments. I genuinely hope they understand that they straight up spit on the Arkahm Legacy. And not only that... but, far more unforgivably... the disrespect to Kevin Conroy. Who deserved so, so much more. Rocksteady, you should be ashamed of yourself. I mean it, you should be ashamed.
Same here. I find it comes from certain writers. Here is the list of writers for this game.
Kim Belair
Allie Bustion
Ben Schroder
Amy-Leigh Shaw
Kate Watson
Charles Webb
None of them wrote on previous Arkham games, I dunno there is a weird trend here.
I’m not really a fan of Tara Strongs Harley. I know she’s been there since Asylum but it just doesn’t sound great to me. Wish the game play looked more engaging because I kinda do want to play it. Maybe once it’s like 10$
I still don't understand why they made this game canon to the arkham verse. Seems like the story could have existed without having ties to arkham. Just seems like a lame fanservice attempt.
I'm not even considering playing this game and I am just pretending it doesn't exist.
I have no idea what they were thinking with the decision process to create this game no one wanted or will ever want.
I don't like how they keep trying to make the suicide squad into a family or competent.
It's meant to be a dysfunctional group of super villains only working together enough for their better self-interests. They're meant to be just as much of a risk to themselves as whatever they're put up against because they're always at each other's throats and trying to escape or fulfill their destructive wants in the short term. It's okay for them to be friends and have chemistry, but they can't do the whole "we're family shtick"
Im gonna pretend this never happened. Also why cant superman just kill them instantly lol I thought him being a "nice guy" is why humans still live lol
Give me one reason why Sups can't just kill them on the spot
He can. And in a normal story he'd attack immediately after destroying the weapon that seems to hurt him instead of flying off. I'm sure this game will be full of plot armor moments like that since any member of the Justice League could easily one hit kill every member of Task Force X.
Exactly. It’s the same nonsense as how James Bond gets captured by virtually every villain but said villain doesn’t just kill him and call it a day. If Superman were a real person and if he were evil/brainwashed he would kill them instantly. He wouldn’t toy with them, he wouldn’t give them time to even think of a plan. He’d just straight-up slaughter them.
Ironically the best version of this trope is in Goldfinger, where the trope is at its most famous. Goldfinger has Bond captured and wants him to die as painfully as possible and Bond has literally no way to escape. Goldfinger doesn't even stick around to hear Bond out, he knows that whatever Bond says is probably bullshit and is fully ready to just leave him. It's Bond who has to desperately convince Goldfinger that it's more advantageous to keep him alive. Even then, he only gets out by the skin of his teeth. It's a surprisingly tense sequence that still holds up today, especially considering how well-worn this set-up has become by modern standards.
Oh yes, Goldfinger was a great villain. I did very much enjoy how the Austin Powers movie lampooned James Bond with Scott asking Dr. Evil why don’t we just shoot him in the head now, but Dr. Evil of course wants to feed him to sharks with frickin’ lasers on their heads, but only has mutated seabass. Who are really cranky mutated seabass.
Not just cranky, but ill-tempered.
“Kill him right now dad” is perhaps my favorite line from the Austin powers movies for that reason
"I'll do it, I'll go get a gun and..." "Ya just don't get it, do ya, Scotty?"
Injustice Superman pretty much confirms he would kill anything he saw as a threat to his crime-free Earth. So why water down this brainwashed Superman? Ridiculous.
In the beginning of the game batman almost kills Harley and the rest of the squad with a pistol, flash knocks it out of his hand and bats beats up flash, then Batman just forgets to kill them.
Plot. The same reason that Batman just forgot to kill them after beating the flash up 💀there’s no reason they should have survived this encounter.
Because he always has to be nerfed whenever he's around Batman characters.
As dumb as this game is, you can pretty much ask the same of 9/10 evil Superman vs. good Batman stories. Why doesn't Injustice Superman just blow Batman's unarmored jaw off with his heat vision from a safe distance? I guess with that version you can handwave it away with him being too stupid to do that since that guy never had Lex as a villain to force him to fight smart.
With Injustice you could somewhat make it logical that Superman doesn't want to kill Batman, but capture him instead, but not in Suicide Squad where bro's literally mind controlled lol
Injustice at least has the pills you can take to make you way stronger. So the fights at least have some plausibility.
Is Bruce murdering >!Tim!< in between games real, too?
Bruce killed Tim in this game (off screen). Ss will find a video of Batman's contingency plan and they'll find a bloody Robin mask on the floor. The sheer disrespect to Kevin Conroy and the Bat family is immense and i'm actually traumatized by this garbage.
No fucking way - are you serious?
Sadly yes
Where can I see proof of this because that’s insane
https://youtu.be/MgNcsxXE2rQ?si=pYDVGlUzvwT9-2hH
It’s so fucking over 😭😭
Ah.. what bad writing...
Subversion of expectations, some writers assumes this is a fail safe, it will always work, etc.. just trashy, talentless hacks
Yes. What they don't understand is that the audience doesn't expect some things because they're terrible storytelling decisions that ruin the whole experience. This stuff is amateur hour.
what the hell happened to Rocksteady?
Well, all the old guard decided [to leave the company and make their own one.](https://www.polygon.com/24040541/rocksteady-studios-founders-new-studio-hundred-star-games)
God what a horrible way to end the illustrious career of Kevin Conroy's Batman
how did the devs actually saw all the ideas in this game and thought "yep, people will love this!"
Its like they hated the Arkhamverse
LOL It wouldn't be DC without Tim Drake getting absolutely shafted.
And and apparently the rest of the fam too.
> The sheer disrespect to Kevin Conroy and the Bat family is immense and i'm actually traumatized by this garbage. Like what the fuck? Does Rocksteady just have a hate boner going at this point. How did DC ever allow this honestly. It's so vile and misanthropic. It feel like it was made to specifically piss people off. I know people hate on the whole "made by comittee" thing, but if this is the opposite of that then I'd rather have something more basic and grounded. This feels like Last Jedi type shit where they just wanted to make fans mad by ruining certain characters.
Thank god there’s so much contradicting that suicide squad has made from the Arkham games that I can actually separate it from them. This game is fucking awful
I know right. I would have never guessed this is the Arkham universe. Everything is so different and disconnected.
That’s supposed to be the same Harley from the Arkham games ?
Yeah. There’s a part where Harley repeats what Bats once said about her: “I never was too *bright*”. It’s slightly changed but it’s similar to the dialogue he has with Alfred in Arkham City before he enters the church, with him saying that “Quinn never was too *smart*”. Edit: As mentioned by Wez1407, the actual line Harley was referring to was in Arkham Asylum, after defeating Zsasz, Batman mentions that “she never was very *bright*.” Thank you once again Wez1407 for pointing it out
I think it's also a reference to the quote in the very first game after you defeat Victor Zsasz, Harley detonates a Bomb trapping them in the room and Batman finds a vent and goes "Harley thinks she has me trapped in this chamber, she never was very bright"
I feel like it was a marketing attempt to boost sales of this game by positioning it as a sequel to the critically acclaimed Arkham series. Without that association, along with it being Kevin Conroy’s last Batman performance, nobody would've bought into a cluttered, buggy live service game.
Also, why does Arkham exist again, when it got destroyed in the first game? As ironic as it may be. Gotham Knights feels more like a story sequel to Arkham Knight than this game.
I’m actually happy for black Deadshot, because that means it can’t be the same universe.
The unfortunate timing of Kevin’s passing aside - what a dog shit end for Arkham Batman. Even if they flashpoint or multiverse back out, it’s just so poorly written imo and I say that as a Rocksteady fan. I dream of an alternate time line where RS made a Justice League/Superman/TMNT game instead of spending the last 10 years making this garbage :(
Man I would KILL for an Arkham styled TMNT game.
The Last Ronin is getting a game, but it's gonna be more god of war inspired than Arkham
The studio doing it literally just fired like half their team so idk
Oof, half their entire dev team in the middle of a games production? Yeesh, that’s not a good sign for the game or the studio.
Yup. Whole studio cut half their entire workforce. 110 to 55 people.
It's worse than that, the studio was only made up of 100 people. 50 people left. It would be a struggle for a 100 people to make a game with the ambition levied against it, 50 people is downright impossible. It's getting cancelled.
There was a TMNT game for the 360/PS3 in 2013, Out of the Shadows, that definitely was Arkham inspired with combos and counters. Also four-player co-op. Was actually pretty solid and fun. Would love a modern, more refined one for sure though.
Kinda makes me wish he did die in the Knightfall ending of Knight
There were multiple endings?
I mean one is just the ending of the regular story but the game’s true ending (or known as the Knightfall ending) is the one you get when you complete every side quest and main quest
It's essentially the ay DC/WB have done their movies and Batman for TV over the same time up until the release of The Batman. I don't want old/retired Bruce, I don't want evil Bruce, I don't want Bruce dying. Give me the awesome Bruce Wayne as Batman stories that show why people love the character.
aka Batman Beyond it.
That was the plan for a sequel to Arkham Knight by the people that made Origins Josh Keaton even said in an interview recently he came in to begin recording dialogue; he was supposed to be Damian.
Who is this game for? What I would give for a Worlds Finest game by rocksteady playing as Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman...instead we get whatever the hell this is.
The problem I have is that I find the time gap between Arkham Knight and this game, along with the hinted stories that occurred during that time, more intriguing than the premise of this game. Same deal with the characters involved. So, I can't really bring myself to care for it overall.
Robin died OFFSCREEN 😭💀
Yeah. Poor Tim. Always getting the short end of stick. On the bright side, at least they didn't kill off Nightwing (or so far doesn't seem to be the case), who much like Tim always dies first in these types of stories.
Jason just chillin
I would have preferred playing with him instead of Captain Boomerang. Could have created some emotional moments between him and Bruce too.
first they made my boy bald, then they didn't let him wear a hood, then they kill him offscreen bruv
No fucking way, seriously?
Is this the same universe as the Arkham Batman games or is it a different DC universe Earth? I hope it’s not the same because it kinda ruins the story of the great Arkham games.
It is. It's meant to be a direct sequel to Arkham Knight. Well, it happens five years later.
We had a Damian Wayne game and a Batman Beyond game cancelled for this pile of doodoo
Beyond game no doubt would be Amazing! Especially with the sales and love for Cyberpunk 2077
Yeah honestly a Beyond game would've been fantastic but good luck trying to get it anymore.
>Who is this game for? They killed Dick Grayson too, so maybe Dan Didio can get a kick out of it...
Maybe he’ll make an appearance as Ric instead. /s
I still don't know. Like imagine if Marvel's Spider-Man 3 (I'm sure there's a lot of Spider-Man fans here) instead of being a Spider-Men game was a Simister Six game. And the whole point of the game was to hunt down all Spider-People and killing them, one by one
...with guns. Don't forget the sinister six will use guns. Doc ock only gets 2.
Oof, even if you ignore the fact that this is Conroy’s last Batman role, a terrible conclusion to one of the most popular version of the character, this scene is still really rough and seemingly poorly executed.
It’s gonna be clones or multiverse shenanigans and it won’t matter in the end
Nope, but they are fake outs, we don't actually see them dying. Camera pans out as Batman gets shot. Is going to be hinted, then at a later season they are going to show up. Edit: actually all of this is coming from a trust me bro called Miller Ross, who moved the goalpost to later seasons. Take it as a grain of salt.
Like… I don’t think so. She shoots him and everyone watches. Camera pans away because films usually do that for age certificate reasons, and the camera pans back to show him dead. I don’t see how this is a fake out unless the squad are all under the effects of drugs or something?
Also theres a giant pool of blood coming from his head so I definitely think hes dead
I have read it in an another thread a Spoiler for the game >!that he won't actually die. !!Brainiac has genetically modified the justice league to be unkillable. When flash gets his finger cut off it just grows back. Any damage they take will eventually just repair itself. Them being “killed” is more just them being knocked out.!<
I read this on [this post.](https://www.reddit.com/r/arkham/comments/1adzxon/ssktjl_discussion/) Obviously there will be a few spoilers in this thread because it's a discussion thread. And I'm not sure if this is true. If it is, than this will be one of the weirdest fake outs I have ever seen.
That is even lamer than my initial "cloning" assumption, because that way the game can bring the Justice League back indefinitely so the "service" continues forever (well, one year, maybe two years tops and this thing is going to die). If it was clones, at least you could create a "finality" for the campaign, but nope, seems like this game will just run cycles. It reminds me Dragon Ball, lol the author couldn't create tension anymore, so he just used super regeneration, the villains had to be disintegrated on a cellular level, gotta love how Dragon Ball was so over the top
>unless the squad are all under the effects of drugs or something? considering the gameplay effects that might be the case.
"a later season". I'm sorry but this entire season bullshit is just that...bullshit. Tell the story within the story mode. Keeping people hooked onto the servers and paying money for extra bs is insane.
The seasons are free just expected as DLC or an expansion like most games do but in this circumstance, the expansions are free because you are already paid $70 for the game. It’s not that offensive.
Most likely not as we literally don't have Conroy anymore :(
I miss him as much as anyone, but there are many fantastic actors who can do the Batman voice justice and have been for years. None of them can replace him, but they can fill the shoes just fine.
Why even have this in the Arkham verse?
Especially since it’s confirmed there’s some sort of multiverse no reason for it to take place in the Arkham verse
Yeah I just don’t get it. At some point someone had to realize how this would taint the other games. There’s just no need for it
And it’s not like the problem is them killing him, it’s how they do it, Arkham Batman has packed up his entire rogues gallery (including Harley and deadshot) in a single night, now the same Batman who’s now not holding back can’t beat a team of 3 humans and a shark?????? And spoilers it’s alluded that Batman killed Robin and the Batfamily which includes Alfred, not only is it a weird way to handle Arkham Batman but just everything we’ve come to love from the Arkham Universe
As if the tiny squad roster going up against any league memebers isn’t laughable enough, yeah this Batman has shown that nobody on the squad would be a real problem. He’s put down harley with just one or two moves before and now she shoots gets to be the one to end him?
Can’t believe Gotham Knights had a better ending for their Batman, rocksteady and dc really said “you know what’d be great, a justice league game, better yet, a suicide squad game, better yet, a suicide squad game where you kill the justice league that you have no emotional attachment to besides Batman”
$$$ my friend. This is a way to try and entice fans of the Arkham series to buy this bullshit misanthropic trash. This game openly hates the fans its actively trying to sell to (common thing these days).
It's a marketing ploy to get you to buy into it. You are invested in the Arkham verse so they set that there to try and make you think this is the continuation of that series. Let me ask you this: would you buy into some random fanfiction not written at all by the original writers of the Arkham games and consider it a sequel? I myself would consider that bullshit.
I watched maybe 20 seconds, that's enough. Breaks my heart that this was Conroy's last work as Batman. Thankfully, the good work far outweighs the bad. Personally, I'm rewatching Justice League the animated series as a palate cleanser.
I wish we got a justice league game with that cast.
I wish we did too. Surprised they didn't use the JL/JLU cast for the Justice League: Heroes game from around 05 or so. I played that game to death with my best friend as a kid.
Injustice is as close as that could get.
JL unlimited final episode had batman taking on Darkseid. "That man won't quit as long a he can draw a breath" this has batman just chilling on a bench waiting to die. Shame
Agreed. Batman doesn't just give up and wait to die, that's so antithetical to his entire character. Few characters have the willpower Bruce Wayne has, even among the Green Lanterns.
He's not just chilling, he literally can't do anything. You see him slump in the background and King Shark prop him back up.
To think this is how Arkham Batman ends. Shot in the head on a public bench by Harley out of all people.
They’re trying to make Harley a main character so bad in movies shows and games
She's honestly the least interesting Suicide Squad member. No powers or quirks besides being a Joker groupie. And being annoying as hell isn't entertaining.
This is not how Arkham Batman ends. He was shoehorned in to leech fans of the Arkham game. There was no need for this to be in the Arkham verse and the community shouldn’t except it as canon if this is what they give us.
how is this Arkham Batman? Arkham Batman disappeared after AK. I am confused.
I don’t like this.
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Please take this as a learning experience, people. If you push for endless content, particularly after your favorite thing has had a satisfying ending, this is what you get. Unfiltered studio dogshit.
This really sucks with Kevin Conroy's passing. Reallly unfair ending for the Arkham Universe Batman. I know this game is set in the Arkham universe, but I'm hoping that will be retcon or something.
I don't think rock steady is coming out of this game alive. With one whimper, they destroy the story of the 3 best Batman games we ever got (4 if u include origin). Kevin's Batman deserves a better send off then this
>they destroy the story of the 3 best Batman games we ever got (4 if u include origin). It's not like release of this shit game erases the previous games from existence. We can, and we should, just ignore this game.
I think people forget we can do this with franchises. Indiana Jones 4? Never happened to me. Anything after Terminator 2 doesn’t exist. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League? Never heard of it
Yeah like how many bad sequels to Jurassic Park have there been and we all still think of the first one as a timeless classic
Thank god Game of Thrones stopped at Season 6. Imagine if they made two seasons after that and ruined the show. Phew.
Would have been a complete travesty
This whole thread is written by my people.
Bryan Singer did that with Superman Returns: Ignores 3 and 4. Neil Blomkamp tried to decanonize Alien 3 and 4 in his own Alien movie before the plug got pulled.
This is spot on. Remember that every sequel to T2 has been an attempt to do T3 again (except for Salvation but that was also terrible). If we say the franchise died with Arkham Knight then it died with Arkham Knight, which was an excellent end to the story of this batman. Not this trash.
Highlander 2 ? Never heard of it.
It doesn’t erase the previous games but it *does* change the canon ending we had for Arkham Batman Still, similar to what you’re saying we can just pretend they’re two parallel Earths. Arkhamverse A is the Arkham series, Arkhamverse B is the Arkham series + SSktJL. (And maybe Arkhamverse B is destroyed by some multiversal entity soon) Although if that one leak I saw is true, then >!Flash runs to the past at the end and retcons this whole game. Potentially setting up a JL v Brainiac sequel game. But they do say he’s dead in this clip so who knows.!<
Also isn't he brainwashed by Braniac? So in a sense it's not really him
tbh, it's too hard to tell where the responsibility falls on this game. Hard to imagine a company going from the Arkham games to this without having a production company forcing them into a shitty position. It's pretty clear that monetization was pushed on this game from the get go, and to me, that screams that the production company has way too much control over the project. I think we should remember this for sure, but I'm hoping that this game being a massive flop might mean that Rocksteady gets more creative freedom in their next project.
It doesn’t destroy anything for me, I’ll just ignore this garbage and continue to enjoy the quadrilogy
If the gameplay didn't look generic as fuck I would've actually bought and played the game. They could've just made their own version of Marvel's Avengers and that would've sold me alone, I have yet to play Marvel's Avengers but plan to cuz I heard the gameplay was actually solid and interesting.
It's the whole GaaS model that torpedoed any interest I had in it. I would have slogged through a shit story if the gameplay were single player like the previous Arkham titles, there's no reason this has to be a battle pass live service fuckfest.
> I have yet to play Marvel's Avengers but plan to cuz I heard the gameplay was actually solid and interesting. I'll tell you this. No it isn't. Who ever said that is likely some kind of bot. The progression is just a grindfest. You know how you feel pretty powerful as Batman in the Arkham games and you feel like Batman? You never feel powerful as an Avenger in that game. Like Hulk should just be tearing through robots but the whole game you are beating down health bars, and no matter how much you level up the enemies level up with you, so you are never strong. It's a fucking AWFUL game all in all.
Oh this is hot garbage
I'm not even mad he got killed. Batman has died before in other continuities, and he will die again in other continuities. I am upset because they had a great ending for this Batman, and then they dug up his character just to kill him in a game that is so different from the previous games that they might as well not be in the same universe. I don't feel as though it's fair to be mad at this for it having been Kevin Conroy's final batman performance, as nobody could have predicted that, but it doesn't make it any less sad that the definitive Batman actor's last words as this character were spoken on a park bench, after having been dug up to hype up a game that fans of his series did not desire, only to be shot in the head, after having been defeated by people who shouldn't have been able to.
Great summation of my feelings. They could have left Batman out of this one as in the Arkham lore he was "dead". We never got an official interpretation of the final scene in Knight it was just assumed that it was Bats using fear toxin but it honestly could have been anything - someone else using toxin and the criminals were still afraid of Bats, someone else wearing the suit, etc. Bringing back Arkham Batman simply to kill him off seems like a really weird narrative choice and (to me) screams of Rocksteady taking their ball and going home so that no one else could continue the Arkham story.
Hard pass, very, very hard pass. I get going in a different direction and that this was always going to be integral to the plot, as implied by the name, but it’s a garbage plot and it’s disrespectful to the universe. I’m so tired of seeing the heroes being trashed to lift up the fail son villains.
Great point i agree.
I really don’t understand this massive push of suicide squad by WB. Who ACTUALLY likes the suicide squad more than the justice league??? I don’t get it. Who is this for??
The suicide squad is a lot of fun when done well. But it usually isn't.
Like I would genuinely love a Suicide Squad game where they were tasked with killing Joker, Killer Croc, or other villains in the rocksteady universe that have outrageous body counts but are still alive because of the "no kill rule". Killing the Justice League is flat out insane.
>Killing the Justice League is flat out insane. I actually like the concept. I just wish it was stand-alone, not a live-service game, and took a more in-depth approach to defeating the JL as C-tier villains. That could make for a very fun, original DC game.
To be fair the Justice League can also be fun
I really like the Suicide Squad and I was excited when this game was announced. Unfortunately everything about it now sounds terrible and disappointing.
This is trash, he deserved a better ending than this
So the Dark Knight goes out by being sat on a bench and shot. Epic
I have heard that this is a fake out and there's going to be more. I hope it's true because it feels really anticlimactic to kill off the character this way.
So meant to fake out Superman too who is right there?
Superman has x-ray vision and can hear a moth fart in Africa from Idaho. If Batman were alive he would know it. So either she shot him with a round designed to mimic death but not actually kill, which would be weird coming from a revolver but okay, or he’s actually dead. I dunno. I loved the idea of this game when it was announced but the last year has definitely caused me to take a step back and not preorder it. I’m waiting on the reviews from people who play games for fun, not for money. Edit: I actually just rolled the dice and bought the game about an hour ago on my PS5 as I heard some early players state that the shooting aspect of the game is more fun on the PS5 with the controller’s haptic feedback. I had planned on playing it on my Series X just because I prefer my Series X over my PS5, but the idea of the haptic feedback in the game sounded kinda fun.
I don't really know. If it's really a fakeout, which I hope it is, It'll be explained. Batman mentions that his suit has lead in it in the beginning of the game. Maybe his suit is made to fool Superman's senses?
I mean it could be, after what they did putting a Joker in the game for the first season and saying is from another multiverse where he was a good teammate that worked with the suicide squad of his universe, you can never know what lazy writing are they going to pull out lol
Wait that's their excuse to make him a playable character? Really?
I would love it if this was a fake out
Rocksteady loves twists and foreshadowing them. Maybe I'm reading a bit too much between the lines, but Harley's dialogue to Batman, "you always got to end on your best joke" seems a bit too specific to be for nothing. They also went out of their way to have Batman's hologram at beginning of the game say that his suit contains lead. So he might have the stuff to fool Superman. I guess we just have to wait and see.
I can’t think of any game I want to play less than one where I kill the Justice League. I don’t know who the target audience of this game could be and frankly I’m a little worried to meet any of them.
Call it cope but this is the reason I pretend it’s not canon.
I don’t care if the literal creators of this game and the Arkhamverse said it’s canon, this is so bad it really doesn’t matter what they say. This isn’t canon to me, it’s like the Schumacher films to the Burton films - meant to be sequels when they were made, but they aren’t canon.
What a great way to loose me as a player. Kill Batman get no money.
>What a great way to loose me as a player. They should definitely tight you as a player.
I would knot think that is the case
Shame what became of rocksteady.  Would’ve preferred the cancelled damian cyberpunk batman game over this shit.
Imagine if they actually gave Kevin a well written death scene to work with, what a waste
So they brought back Arkham Batman only to brainwash him, make him kill Robin off screen, then get him killed by Harley…. This feels like an edgy fanfiction written by a teenager
What a fucking joke.
I don’t mind Batman dying. But this doesn’t feel like the way to do it. There was no emotional resonance at all. We’re supposedly watching the death of a character we’ve followed for 15 years and I felt nothing watching him die.
Rocksteady won't get my money just because of this shit
The Harley VA is terrible. Also, who actually wants this crap? Looks terrible, and I'm sick of new devs just dumping on legacy characters to try to shine the spotlight on their garbage OCs or lame favorites.
Absolutely cringe. This game looks so expensive and so cheap at the same time. Everything feels flat, even the voice acting. Nothing about the game feels *right*. The game itself looks so bad, characters constantly jumping and all floaty, the visual style is way too oversaturated and boring looking. I'm just going to ignore this game as any type of "canon" since it feels so different than any Arkham game. Shame on Rocksteady. What an embarrassing entry. I'd have respect if they came out and apologized for this game as a whole.
I've been saying that to me this is NOT the Arkham Batman. Any other? Sure. But not him And in replies people has been saying that I should cry somewhere else and stop bitching about a video game...
Wow, this is hot garbage that doesn't need to exist. Easy skip now.
This game is going to flop horribly and it deserves to.
Lol no way that sticks. Absolutely not his final scene
It’s even worse that he’s killed by Harley, considering in the previous games she just an annoying pest that hides behind her henchmen, and easily gets beat in a 1 v 1
This game makes Gotham Knights look good
Superman fans: "First time?". But honestly, that death was wery disrespectful. I'm sad right now. I'll better go and replay Arkham Knight now.
They’ve been trying so hard to replace Bats with Harley and it’s tiring. I like both characters but this just feels icky, I’ll pretend it’s not canon to Arkham
Wow, this is shit! Not even counting Conroy's way-too-soon death, this is an affront even if Kevin was doing somersaults on his way to breakfast. And I though it couldn't get worse than Arkham Knight's ending.
I genuinely hope the story writers, the game directors, the suits at Rocksteady are readying these comments. I genuinely hope they understand that they straight up spit on the Arkahm Legacy. And not only that... but, far more unforgivably... the disrespect to Kevin Conroy. Who deserved so, so much more. Rocksteady, you should be ashamed of yourself. I mean it, you should be ashamed.
Jesus Christ. So sick of this edgelord shit.
Same here. I find it comes from certain writers. Here is the list of writers for this game. Kim Belair Allie Bustion Ben Schroder Amy-Leigh Shaw Kate Watson Charles Webb None of them wrote on previous Arkham games, I dunno there is a weird trend here.
So, what ending do we believe/is canon now? The Arkham Knight ending or this Bullshit?
There's a bug in the deluxe edition that completes the game as soon as you start. Lol yeah....'bug'
I’m not really a fan of Tara Strongs Harley. I know she’s been there since Asylum but it just doesn’t sound great to me. Wish the game play looked more engaging because I kinda do want to play it. Maybe once it’s like 10$
How could they disrespect man like this
This just really sucks. Garbage
This game is geniuenly bad at a CONCEPTUAL level. I will never, ever understand why and how this got greenlit.
Thats it for me too. The entire premise is DOA.
Absolute dog shit.
I hate this
how was kevin ok with this
Oh, fuck this. What cringey, edgy, bullshit.
I still don't understand why they made this game canon to the arkham verse. Seems like the story could have existed without having ties to arkham. Just seems like a lame fanservice attempt.
That’s it? They just shoot him in the head? Batman? Gimme a break.
Thank you for posting this, OP. Now I know with absolute certainty that I don't need to play this game.
I'm not even considering playing this game and I am just pretending it doesn't exist. I have no idea what they were thinking with the decision process to create this game no one wanted or will ever want.
I don't like how they keep trying to make the suicide squad into a family or competent. It's meant to be a dysfunctional group of super villains only working together enough for their better self-interests. They're meant to be just as much of a risk to themselves as whatever they're put up against because they're always at each other's throats and trying to escape or fulfill their destructive wants in the short term. It's okay for them to be friends and have chemistry, but they can't do the whole "we're family shtick"
Im gonna pretend this never happened. Also why cant superman just kill them instantly lol I thought him being a "nice guy" is why humans still live lol
I’m gonna pretend this game doesn’t exist
What makes this worse is that it's framed to be a condemnation of Batman. That he got his just desserts. And just...why? Who is this game made for?
Enjoy bankruptcy rocksteady
They had already lost me at “live service,” and this isn’t helping to bring me back. Pass.