Suicide Squad director says development became driven by spreadsheets, not game design

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has resurfaced this week, as one of the game’s directors has spoken openly about how development shifted away from making a great game and toward heavy monetisation.

The game launched in 2024 after years of development and multiple delays. Rocksteady, best known for its single‑player Batman Arkham titles, moved toward a live‑service multiplayer model. This quickly turned out to be the wrong decision as fans did not show up to buy the game. By the end of 2024, WB Games had recorded a $200 million loss and Rocksteady had to move on to new projects, effectively abandoning the game.

Now, Axel Rydby, who joined Rocksteady in 2018 and served as one of the directors on Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, has shared more insight into what happened behind the scenes. In a new interview with Bloomberg, Rydby explains that early on, studio leadership was confident following the success of the Arkham trilogy. But over time, priorities shifted, and by 2022, executives were increasingly focused on recouping their investment through monetisation rather than on building the best possible game.

As Rydby describes it: “Over time, and after being delayed from 2022 to 2024, the priorities of the executives shifted toward recouping their investment. That’s when I started feeling like I wasn’t making games anymore. I was following a spreadsheet, some elusive marketing‑analysis spreadsheet that no one could present clearly. I kind of felt like this isn’t the gaming industry I wanted to work in.”

Rydby has since left Rocksteady and founded a new independent studio, where he is now working on Secret of Circadia. Rocksteady has not announced its next project, but rumours suggest the team may be returning to a single‑player Batman game.

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KitGuru Says: It is quite clear at this point that Rocksteady should have never made Suicide Squad. The overwhelming majority of fans rejected the game completely, and those that did decide to give it a chance were left with disappointment. With all of that said, it was very impressive visually, particularly the cutscenes, but shiny graphics and mini movies don't make a great game. 

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