How Suicide Squad’s Single-Player & Co-Op Multiplayer Work

On the gaming front of the DC FanDome event, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League was announced to be officially under development by Rocksteady Studios. In their first game since the completion of the Batman: Arkham series, Rocksteady looks to separate themselves from their previous work while keeping to familiar roots within the DC Universe. With the game confirmed to be taking place within the timeline of Rocksteady’s previous trilogy, it’s only fitting that the game takes one of Arkham Knight‘s mechanics and expands on it further.

The game sees players taking control of Amanda Waller’s Task Force X, with the trailer placing them within a ravaged Metropolis as a Skull Ship watches ominously in the background. As the rag-tag group share a brief moment of levity, Waller contacts them with the whereabouts of their “Alpha Target”, sending them on their way to pursue them at Metropolis Plaza. It is only after a chopper is taken out of the sky that the “Alpha Target” is revealed to be Superman. With the Justice League in the sights of the Suicide Squad, it will take a team effort to survive. This is exemplified by how the game handles its single-player and co-op modes of play.

As part of the DC FanDome presentation, actor Will Arnett (The voice behind Batman in the LEGO Universe) spoke with Rocksteady’s Creative Director Sefton Hill about how players would control the characters in the game. When asked about who players would be able to play as and how, Sefton Hill answered, “The structure of the game is a 1-4 player co-op game, so if you want to play single-player? You can totally play single-player…You’ll still have a full squad with you. Players 2 through 4 will be filled by bots that fight along with you“. Further elaborating on the squad dynamic, Hill added, “If you want to play multiplayer with your friends, that’s still absolutely great. They can join in and take control of the other squad members”.

How Suicide Squad Juggles Single-Player and Co-Op

In regards to its effect on the overall gameplay, Hill mentioned that the entire game is “dynamic” in that players can play the entire game in whichever fashion they choose. Hill states that “the whole game is accessible: single-player or multiplayer“, and that players can freely tackle missions in either format however they choose, wanting to “give that [option] to the fans“. To follow-up further on the single-player portion, Hill states that players are “never locked” to one character at any time as the game allows players to swap between any of the four members of the Squad on the fly.

This mechanic is reminiscent of the “Dual Play” feature of Batman: Arkham Knight. “Dual Play” enabled players to swap from Batman to one of the other playable characters in the middle of combat, keeping the combo going and seamlessly transitioning control to the second character. With the description given by Sefton Hill, fans of that system can expect to see an overhauled version of it in their latest title as Hill emphasized the differences in each character’s style and how they approach combat. While Arkham Knight had a similar system in play, fans of comic-book games may recognize this system elsewhere.

The ability to seamlessly switch characters among a group of four characters is a mechanic that has seen use in comic-book games in the past, with the most prominent and early uses being in the X-Men Legends and Marvel Ultimate Alliance series of games. With the promise that the game never leave a player stuck playing as any individual characters, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League looks to be borrowing elements from superhero games from both Rocksteady’s past and the history of the genre in general to provide players with a cohesive experience in playing as Task Force X on their mission to kill the Justice League.

About The Author

Lawrence Maldonado
(122 Articles Published)

Lawrence Maldonado is a writer, editor, and lifelong video game nerd born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He has edited an eBook for a voice actor in video games while also having done work as a Community Editor for a video game company. On the side, he would write articles and blogs about video games and the industry in general, leading him to cover games on Screen Rant as a freelance writer. Currently, he can be found wandering the realm of Eorzea while venturing to be the very best like no one ever was. His favorite video game of all time? The answer changes almost daily.

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