Warner Bros. Managers Made Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Developers Consider Leaving the Industry
"That's when I felt like I wasn't making games anymore. I was just following some marketing analytics spreadsheet that no one could really explain."
Two former developers of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League frankly spoke about how working on the failed project affected their attitude towards the gaming industry. They shared their memories in an interview with Bloomberg.
According to former Rocksteady Studios designer Jonny Armstrong, after the completion of the Batman: Arkham trilogy, the team enthusiastically embarked on a new project. However, it soon became clear that the development direction was very different from what the studio was used to. Publisher Warner Bros. bet on a live-service game — a direction Rocksteady had practically no experience with before.
Former project director Axel Rydby, who led the development in 2022, noted that the almost seven-year production only intensified the pressure from the publisher. According to him, Warner Bros. sought to recoup its investments, so the team increasingly focused on audience retention mechanics, replayability, and player engagement.
Rydby admitted that at some point, he stopped feeling like a game developer.
That's when I felt like I wasn't making games anymore. I was just following some marketing analytics spreadsheet that no one could really explain. This wasn't the gaming industry I wanted to be in anymore.
Armstrong said that working on Suicide Squad completely exhausted him and made him consider leaving the industry.
I felt like all the energy had been drained out of me. I told myself, "I can't do this anymore. I don't know if I'm leaving the industry forever, but I've had enough." I literally felt like I was falling apart.
Ultimately, both developers left Rocksteady Studios and decided to focus on their own project. They are currently working on the role-playing card game Secret of Circadia and have launched a Kickstarter campaign, hoping to raise about $11,000 to complete development.
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