A few hours ago a screenshot was leaked on 4chan of the Suicide Squad menu screen. Sadly, it shows a Battle Pass and an in-game store. These features should be no surprise to anyone, but it's still upsetting to see.
The fifth installment of the Batman: Arkham series, Suicide Squad, is going to be released soon. And as the name suggests, we aren't playing as Batman anymore, we're taking control of the Suicide Squad instead. But despite this fairly significant shift for the franchise, fans still expect the game to be fundamentally similar to the previous Arkham games.
Well, that might be what fans think they're going to get, but a recent leak has given us a whole new set of expectations for the game. But not in a good way...
Leaked Image From Suicide Squad Shows Battle Pass, In-Game Store & Loadouts
An image was recently leaked to 4chan that purportedly showed the Suicide Squad menus, and it revealed a few unexpected features that made fans worry, namely a Battle Pass and in-game store. We thought it was just a fake at first, but VGC have now had confirmation from one of their sources that it is in fact the main menu screen from the upcoming Suicide Squad game.
We don't want to send you to 4chan (you must never go there, Simba), so here's one of the thousands of re-uploads to Twitter:
First look at the Suicide Squad game menu. Mentions Battle Pass, Loadout, Missions based structure. #Batman #SuicideSquad pic.twitter.com/t3vmHmjQ8k
— Andrew Marmo (@the_marmolade) January 17, 2023
As you can see, we have the following menus to choose from:
- Squad
- Looks
- Loadout
- Talents
- Social
- Battle Pass
- Store
- Codex
- Options
Now, a lot of these are perfectly fine to see in a single-player action-adventure game. But the Battle Pass and Store, which are more commonly found in free-to-play online games, were unwelcome surprises. As was the Loadout menu, although to a lesser extent.
Even if the store and Battle Pass are purely cosmetic, why should someone be forced to spend additional money in a single-player game for these things? Something just feels so wrong about being nickel-and-dimed that hard. Because, at least in the games where we most frequently see these features, we aren't also having to spend $70 just to play.
Maybe we're just getting too old, and we need to adapt, but we don't think so. This should hurt sales of the game, and hopefully that can convince publishers to stop trying to force through this change. That said, we're sure the devs themselves weren't asking for this feature, and we don't have any animosity towards them.
What do you think about Battle Passes in non-free-to-play titles, is that a change you welcome? If you want a really great superhero game right now, buy Midnight Suns here.
Why bother with Suicide Squad when all of these titles are coming out this year as well?