Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League drama has old Batman game surging again
RocksteadySuicide Squad Kill the Justice League’s rocky launch isn’t all bad news for Rocksteady. It has caused a massive surge in the player count for one of their older Batman games.
It’s safe to say Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has not had the launch that developer Rocksteady would have hoped for. In the opening hours of its early access, the game was brought offline due to a bug that finished the story automatically.
Following that launch, discourse surrounding Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has been contemptuous in regard to its treatment of the franchise that established it. Abysmal player counts also bode ill given their seeming unsustainability for a long-term, live-service title.
If there’s any silver lining for Rocksteady, it may be that players are seemingly returning to one of their older titles in response. Originally reported by TrueTrophies, Batman Arkham Knight has received a substantial uptick in players in the lead-up to, and following, the launch of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.
RocksteadyBatman Arkham Knight player count spikes
Using data from over 3.2 million PSN accounts, TrueTrophies did some number crunching on the player base for Batman Arkham Knight on PlayStation consoles. In the week prior to the launch of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, Batman Arkham Knight saw a 20.5% increase in PlayStation players booting the game.
Over the course of Suicide Squad’s launch week, that number was bolstered by a further 25.94% increase in players. Overall, in the last two weeks, Batman Arkham Knight has seen a 51.19% rise in overall player count on PlayStation consoles.
While there is no record of an active movement like Capcom’s #ReturnToWorld initiative, players have been comparing both Suicide Squad and Arkham Knight on social media for months.
The handling of Batman’s death in Suicide Squad also caused a massive stir amongst fans of the Arkham games. Mostly due to the seemingly unceremonious send-off to a Batman that Rocksteady insists is that of the Arkham Universe.
It should be noted that TrueTrophies have recorded a similar uptick in Arkham Knight players during the launch period for Gotham Knights. They cited that as evidence that this phenomenon may not be linked to any contempt for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.
Of course, the reception to Gotham Knights was also less-than-stellar and that did hinge on a lot of unfavorable comparisons to Batman Arkham Knight.
