Recently we got our first in-depth look at Rocksteady's Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, with an extended gameplay slice and behind-the-scenes video dropping for the highly anticipated game. This is the first game since the studio's brilliant Batman: Arkham Knight in 2015, and it looks very different from what the studio has delivered up until now.

In harsher terms you could say that the gameplay makes it look like a live-service mash-up of Crackdown's superhero traversal (good) mixed with the fast-paced shooting and arbitrary "Gear Score" that is all about giving you countless variations of the same guns to equip (bad). Having this dictate your power and not your character's superhero abilities is a massive red flag.

In terms of setup, it's similar to the recent Gotham Knights - also from Warner Bros. - except that this does look smooth, polished, and responsive in ways that makes Gotham Knights look like a cheap mobile knock-off.

There are definite Crackdown vibes here, which is nice, and the co-op combat looks like a lot of fun in how smooth it appears. Check it out.

Check out the first official look at 4-player co-op gameplay for
#SuicideSquadGame in this exclusive Sony State of Play trailer as Harley
Quinn, Deadshot, Captain Boomerang, and King Shark combine their unique
traversal abilities, gunplay, melee, tactics, and teamwork to face off against
waves of Brainiac’s corrupted soldiers and take down a huge techno-organic
artillery gun that has been phased into Metropolis.

Even though it looks smooth, there's a cartoon almost Fornight videogame vibe to the visuals - which is another massive departure from the dark and gothic tones of the sublime Arkham series. Things become even more concerning with the behind-the-scenes video from Rocksteady which outlines the game's co-op ambitions, Battle Pass for a story-driven experience, and the Destiny and The Division-like Gear Score system which looks to be putting an emphasis on using a sequence of generic guns versus actual skills and abilities.



Worst of all, what we see and hear doesn't justify why the game is implementing this style of an action-RPG system outside of "higher numbers are better," which is troubling, to say the least.

Rocksteady has been working on this game for several years, and the studio's track record is "so far, so good" so we're remaining open to this one turning out great. But, we're definitely worried.