Rocksteady is facing layoffs in the wake of Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, with reports citing its poor performance as the reason behind ‘restructuring’ at the studio.
After earning critical and commercial acclaim for its Batman: Arkham games, Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League became one of the most high-profile flops of the year.
Warner Bros. itself admitted sales for the live service shooter had ‘fallen short of our expectations’ back in February, with concerns that it could lead to layoffs at the studio – in what’s become a recurring trend for big budget failures in the current gaming landscape.
Seven months after the game launched, reports of layoffs at the studio have emerged, with the team’s QA (Quality Assurance) department being the worst affected.
According to a report, the QA team has been cut by almost half over the past month, from 33 team members to 15. It’s said the layoffs have impacted other departments too, with one team member stating they were told about their redundancy in the middle of their paternity leave.
As reported by Eurogamer, Rocksteady staff said Suicide Squad’s poor sales were cited as the reason behind the ‘restructuring’. At the time of writing, neither Warner Bros. or Rocksteady Studios have released a statement.
Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League is said to have lost Warner Bros. $200 million, but despite its failure and a 41% drop in gaming revenue this year, the company has said it’s still planning on making more free-to-play live service games in the future.
It’s unclear if Rocksteady will be doing so though, instead of focusing on a new single-player title. Just recently, the LinkedIn page for senior systems programmer, Tae Ho Kang, revealed that he was on the ‘tech team’ for an unannounced project as of June 2024 (a comment which has since been removed), so it seems like the team is working on something new.
Whatever Rocksteady’s next project is, it won’t be set in Robert Pattinson’s The Batman universe. After the rumour spread online last week, DC boss James Gunn denied it was happening, writing: ‘Sadly there is no truth to this whatsoever.’
The next Batman Arkham project will be Batman: Arkham Shadow in VR, which is set to be released on Meta Quest 3 in October and is shaping up to be extremely impressive.
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