Suicide Squad Makes A Welcome Change To How Battle Passes Usually Work
Like several other live-service games, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League will offer players additional rewards through a battle pass of mostly cosmetic items. Where Rocksteady aims to shake up this formula is by eliminating the limited-time design of its battle pass--Halo Infinite has a similar approach--as the studio will let players complete goals on the free and paid-for premium tracks at their leisure.
Typically, live-service battle passes are up for between one to three months, and once that time has expired, so will they. The best rewards are kept right until the end of a battle pass, forcing players to grind throughout the period to unlock cosmetics and gear. This has long been criticized by players, and in a QA discussion on the Suicide Squad Discord, Rocksteady said it wants to respect the personal time of its players instead.
"We're also happy to announce that you will be able to go back and play previous battle passes after a season ends," studio director Darius Sadeghian explained. "We believe that our team has created some of the best-looking cosmetic items ever, and we want those to be available for our players to enjoy without fear that they'll miss out on anything."
When asked about the possibility of doing solo runs of endgame content, Axel Rydby added that this will be possible as Rocksteady realizes that people love to play games but also have lives outside of gaming.
"We all love playing games, but we also have lives--sort of--and that's been a big part of our design philosophy making this game," Rydby explained. "We don't want the game to feel like a life commitment or be a game where you have to sacrifice a lot to see all the content on offer or feel like you're not making good progress in the game if you can't play hundreds of hours. We want this game to be generous, both with your time and with all the features we have to offer."
This lines up with previous comments made by Rocksteady about its post-launch direction for Suicide Squad, as production manager Jack Hackett mentioned the studio wanting to avoid an infinite treadmill scenario. Essentially, Rocksteady wants players to feel that they've gotten their money's worth out of the experience, as they'll be play the game whenever it suits them and not because they're scared of missing out on a shiny new cosmetic.
The first battle pass will go live with the start of Season 1--with an alternate-reality Joker who rides a rocket-powered umbrella--a few weeks after the game's initial release. Early access of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has begun this week ahead of the game's full rollout on February 2, although as early adopters have discovered, there's a slight snag with their early dive into the game.
