Rocksteady released their first DLC for Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League that features the Joker and it appears to have been a complete flop based on concurrent Steam players.
The Suicide Squad in Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League (2024), Rocksteady
Rocksteady announced their first free content update that includes a “new take on the iconic Super-Villain” Joker. It also introduces a new map that players can explore during Incursion and Mayhem mission. Rocksteady shared that the map is a “version of Metropolis infected with the twisted and warped mind of The Joker, creating a darkly comic reflection of the City of Tomorrow.”
It also introduced new gear, specifically the Scarecrow Gear Set that allows players to “stack ‘Fear’ and ‘Horror’ on your enemies.” There are also a number of other items that are available that come from various DC villains such as Mad Hatter, Polka-Dot Man and Reverse Flash.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League on X
Furthermore, Rocksteady added a new weapon manufacturer: Intergang. It also revealed new outfits, banners, and poses for characters through the Season 1 Battle Pass such as Waynetech outfits.
Finally, they also report that the game will have new Mayhem and Assault missions as well as a new Incursion mission that is being called Combat Incursions. Rocksteady explains these missions “allow the squad to do what they do best: bash some Coluan heads together however they see fit.”
Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League (2024), Rocksteady
The DLC officially arrived on March 28th and saw a marginal increase in concurrent players. According to Steamcharts, concurrent players for the game peaked at 3,012 following the release of the DLC. However, less than a week since the DLC released that concurrent number fell to 1,183 on April 1st.
As noted by Steamcharts, the all-time peak for the game was 13,459, which occurred back at the beginning of February.
A screenshot of Steamcharts data from Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League
Given the peak concurrent players only reached a little over 3,000 and it quickly dropped off in less than a week it’s hard to imagine that the game brought in any kind of significant revenue from selling Season 1 battle passes. It’s likely safe to describe this Season 1 DLC as a flop.
And this flop comes after Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav admitted the game failed shortly after its release during the company’s fourth quarter 2023 earnings webcast.
Zaslav said, “On the theatrical and gaming side while we did have some real misses this year, we also had some really big wins including Barbie, the number one movie globally and the most successful movie in the history of Warner Bros., and Hogwarts Legacy, the biggest game of 2023.”
Later in the earnings calls, the company’s Chief Financial Officer Gunnar Wiedenfels admitted, “This year, Suicide Squad, one of our key video game releases in 2024, has fallen short of our expectations since its release earlier in the quarter, setting our games business up for a tough year-over-year comp in Q1.”
A screenshot from Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League (2024), Rocksteady Studios
Following this admission it was reported the sales were an utter disaster by Christopher Dring at Games Industry. He claimed the Games Sales Data chart out of Europe, which tracks both physical and digital sales for most AAA publishers that Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League did not chart in the top 10 of sales for the month of February. That’s the month the game released.
He revealed the game placed 12th in the month and that its sales in its first five weeks of release were 33% lower than Gotham Knights in 2022 and 61% lower than Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy in 2021.
A scene from Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League (2024), Rocksteady
It’s unlikely that the game will ever be successful as it is currently the subject of a boycott due to the involvement of consultancy group Sweet Baby Inc. The game is listed on the Sweet Baby Inc. detected Steam curator list that lists all of the games Sweet Baby Inc. has been involved with that are available to purchase on Steam.
The curator list is followed by over 355,000 gamers.
Sweet Baby Inc. Detected Steam curator list
What do you make of the concurrent players for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League just barely topping 3,000 players following the release of the game’s first DLC that features The Joker?
