What happened to Rocksteady?

[luiz_felipe64]

If you are unaware, several gamers broke their NDAs and shared information about the new Rocksteady game Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.

 

Below are just some examples of what was shared:

Spoiler

• Poison Ivy will return (as speculated by some), but as a 9-year-old kid, used by Lex Luthor as a way to make anti-super weapons. Completely ignoring her character ark in Arkham Knight, and making her death redundant.
• According to the leaks, killing the Justice League will be the only way to truly defeat them in the game.
• There will be a multiverse travel mid-game, showing alternative Earths in the game. At least in my opinion, with the recent misses that both Marvel and DC had this year using the multiverse theme, it reached a point that it became stale and unoriginal.
• Wonder Woman will appear in the game, but according to leaks, her part will be smaller and she will have an anticlimatic death.
• The Suicide Squad will use a fake Batmobile to enter the Batcave, which is something Batman would neer allow.

 

Now these, in my opinion, are the worst things that happened and the main reason why I am writing this post: the treatment Rocksteady gave to Batman.

Spoiler

• The Suicide Squad will find the bodies of Tim Drake and the Bat family, which indicates that Batman has killed them.
• After being defeated, they will find a video explaning how to defeat Superman, but decided to ignore it due to it being "boring".
• Batman last moments will involve Harley making a speach and him stating how bad it was, ending with her shooting Batman in the head.

 

Then, there will be a battle against Brainiac, and as a live service game, creating content for future missions and possibly seasons will result in more Brainiacs arriving on the game's world, resulting in an endless fight.

 

After the wall of text above, a question needs to be asked: what happened to Rocksteady ?

 

What happened to the same company that created a trilogy of games that gave us so many good memories, who created complex character arks, who gave us a perfect Batman ending in Arkham Knight, who was supposed to create a goodbye game to the legendary Kevin Conroy?

 

When did it all go wrong?

[DanteIshimura]

Didn't the main guys who created Rocksteady leave/get pushed out?

[EDGES]

one thing I had to learn over the years about video game devlopers is that you can never trust a studio's next game to be of the same quality as their past games because people leave constantly, and most of the time, the new people are less skilled/passionate, Rocksteady of today is not the Rocksteady of the Arkham trilogy

Edited January 4 by EDGES

[Neo_Zord]

Zaslav's Warner is now worse than it was before imo, the current push to live services will most likely make this game flop hard and now I'm worried about the announced Wonder Woman game, love her but don't trust WB lately.

 

Also, the co-founders left some months ago, more often than not it's a bad sign.

[yowzagabowza]

 I'm positive this is because Warner Bros has their greedy fingers in everything. WB is among the absolute worst publishers out there.

[Conor]

A great developer shackled to a crappy publisher as is the woes that have plagued so many talented studios of the past.

[Giggly-Raccoon]

He is hiding with Bebop?

[ARIXANDRE]

It's their owners, Warner Brothers. Same company that made live-service fiasco Gotham Knights and the microtransaction-heavy Shadow of War. 

 

The push for live-service is destroying single player greats, from Arkane's Redfall (who have also broken NDAs to complain) to Naughty Dog's Factions (who have gone above Jimbo Ryan to abandon the idea and go back do single player games.)

[Dry]

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,

It’s not too late to cancel this game.

[DrBloodmoney]

Is the fact that this looks underwhelming really that much of a shock?

 

When did Rocksteady being some “infallible” studio become the narrative?

Rocksteady made one amazing game, and two decent, albeit progressively diminishing, sequels…

…but TBH, I am a little mystified by the assertion by so many that they are a “great studio” being shackled by a less than great publisher.

 

The fact is, Rocksteady trapped lightning in a bottle with Arkham Asylum - that was an absolutely killer game, and all props to them for that… but it’s not like Rocksteady had some illustrious history before Arkham.

 

Thier previous couple of games before AA were Urban Chaos: Riot Response (hardly a barn-burner), and the Catwoman Movie Tie-In game (As Argonaut Games) - which was pretty woeful.

 

Argonaut’s back catalogue before that is a pretty underwhelming array of B-games and misfires, with a few solid-if-never-outstanding games in there too:

the kind of catalogue that you expect from a respectable, jobbing, workhorse studio - not a “powerhouse” by any stretch. 

 

I mean, a game as good as Arkham Asylum is a special thing, but to parley the idea that a single, uniquely great game equates to a “great studio” is just not realistic…

….and to do so is simply setting oneself up for exactly this kind of disappointment.

[EDGES]

26 minutes ago, DrBloodmoney said:

Is the fact that this looks underwhelming really that much of a shock?

 

When did Rocksteady being some “infallible” studio become the narrative?

Rocksteady made one amazing game, and two decent, albeit progressively diminishing, sequels…

…but TBH, I am a little mystified by the assertion by so many that they are a “great studio” being shackled by a less than great publisher.

 

The fact is, Rocksteady trapped lightning in a bottle with Arkham Asylum - that was an absolutely killer game, and all props to them for that… but it’s not like Rocksteady had some illustrious history before Arkham.

 

Thier previous couple of games before AA were Urban Chaos: Riot Response (hardly a barn-burner), and the Catwoman Movie Tie-In game (As Argonaut Games) - which was pretty woeful.

 

Argonaut’s back catalogue before that is a pretty underwhelming array of B-games and misfires, with a few solid-if-never-outstanding games in there too:

the kind of catalogue that you expect from a respectable, jobbing, workhorse studio - not a “powerhouse” by any stretch. 

 

I mean, a game as good as Arkham Asylum is a special thing, but to parley the idea that a single, uniquely great game equates to a “great studio” is just not realistic…

….and to do so is simply setting oneself up for exactly this kind of disappointment.

 

you are very much in the minority on this one, Arkham Asylum was 100% a hit, 92 meta, they expanded on it with City, an even harder hit, 94 meta, one of the most memorable moments in the Batman lore with Joker's death, then Arkham Knight, a technological marvel, towering over new releases in visuals and gameplay to this day, a very respectable 87 meta with a newfound love from the community after the release of games like Gotham Knights where people are starting to realize that Knight was judged too harshly

 

the Arkham trilogy from Rocksteady established a new genre of gameplay, it spawned several clones, Middleearth games, Mad Max, Spider-Man and many others, in fact, the new Spider-Man games take so much from Arkham, they might as well be just a reskin, and even still, they don't hold up to them, that's how ahead of their times the Arkham games were, perfectly passing the test of time to this day, especially Knight

 

overall, the Arkham trilogy is one of the strongest video game trilogies, to say they aren't is just an out of touch point of view, you might not hold them as dear, but a lot of people do

Edited January 4 by EDGES

[DrBloodmoney]

1 hour ago, EDGES said:

 

you are very much in the minority on this one, Arkham Asylum was 100% a hit, 92 meta, they expanded on it with City, an even harder hit, 94 meta, one of the most memorable moments in the Batman lore with Joker's death, then Arkham Knight, a technological marvel, towering over new releases in visuals and gameplay to this day, a very respectable 87 meta with a newfound love from the community after the release of games like Gotham Knights where people are starting to realize that Knight was judged too harshly

 

the Arkham trilogy from Rocksteady established a new genre of gameplay, it spawned several clones, Middleearth games, Mad Max, Spider-Man and many others, in fact, the new Spider-Man games take so much from Arkham, they might as well be just a reskin, and even still, they don't hold up to them, that's how far ahead the Arkham games were

 

overall, the Arkham trilogy is one of the strongest video game trilogies, to say they aren't, is just an out of touch view, you might not hold them as dear, but a lot of people do

Did you even read what I wrote?

 

I like all three Arkham games - what order I would put them in on a tier list is immaterial - the point is, they are sequels to one innovative game…

 

…and as good or genre-defining as that game may have been - a single flash of brilliance like that shouldn’t necessarily mean that the studio is somehow expected to remain at that level in perpetuity…

…particularly when the long history of their output prior to that flash shows that the level of quality they hit with that game (or trilogy) is clearly the exception, rather than the rule.

 

The point I was making was that the answer to the OPs original thesis question: "What happened to Rocksteady?"....

 

...is...

"Nothing. They had their massive success, they rode the wave of it respectably, and now, they are simply shifting back into the position in the pack they had always occupied prior to it."

 

...and while that might not be the fairytale ending people want, it is a perfectly respectable and predictable arc for a studio that stumbles into a huge success 

Edited January 4 by DrBloodmoney

[cy1999aek_maik]

Sounds like this game isn't worth playing after all. I was going to play it for the plot but the plot doesn't seem to be worth it. It's a shame because arkham and injustice were the only DC game universes we had worth playing and it seems like this just leaves injustice. 

[Rebourne07]

Executives

[EDGES]

4 hours ago, DrBloodmoney said:

Did you even read what I wrote?

 

I like all three Arkham games - what order I would put them in on a tier list is immaterial - the point is, they are sequels to one innovative game…

 

…and as good or genre-defining as that game may have been - a single flash of brilliance like that shouldn’t necessarily mean that the studio is somehow expected to remain at that level in perpetuity…

…particularly when the long history of their output prior to that flash shows that the level of quality they hit with that game (or trilogy) is clearly the exception, rather than the rule.

 

The point I was making was that the answer to the OPs original thesis question: "What happened to Rocksteady?"....

 

...is...

"Nothing. They had their massive success, they rode the wave of it respectably, and now, they are simply shifting back into the position in the pack they had always occupied prior to it."

 

...and while that might not be the fairytale ending people want, it is a perfectly respectable and predictable arc for a studio that stumbles into a huge success 

 

you wrote a post in which you made two key points, 1. the two games after Asylum are inferior to it, WRONG, 2. it is not impressive for a studio to release a hit and then follow it with two more great games, WRONG

 

and I replied to that, if it wasn't clear, which I don't know how it couldn't be, I will point it out again, point 1: story is subjective, but visuals and mechanics/gameplay can't be argued, the gameplay is constantly taken to another level with each game, that is incredibly impressive, the freeflow combat in Arkham Knight is perfection, if you put it next to the combat in Asylum, the difference is drastic, as for the visuals, Knight to this day is boxing 1 to 1 with new releases, that is impressive

 

point 2. (which was a pretty self hallucinogenic thing to say): most devs would kill for a trilogy that goes 3 for 3, the amount of games that have successful trilogies like Arkham is not that big and is a privilege reserved for the top studios in the industry, that is why people had high expectations of Rocksteady

Edited January 4 by EDGES

[DrBloodmoney]

6 minutes ago, EDGES said:

 

you wrote a post in which you made two key points, 1. the two games after Asylum are inferior to it, WRONG, 2. it is not impressive for a studio to release a hit and then follow it with two more great games, WRONG

 

and I replied to that, if it wasn't clear, which I don't know how it couldn't be, I will point it out again, point 1: story is subjective, but visuals and mechanics/gameplay can't be argued, the gameplay is constantly taken to another level with each game, that is incredibly impressive, the freeflow combat in Arkham Knight is perfection, if you put it next to the combat in Asylum, the difference is drastic, as for the visuals, Knight to this day is boxing 1 to 1 with new releases, that is impressive

 

point 2. (which was a pretty self hallucinogenic thing to say): most devs would kill for a trilogy that goes 3 for 3, the amount of games that have successful trilogies like Arkham is not that big and is a privilege reserved for the top studios in the industry, that is why people had high expectations of Rocksteady

Well, personally I would argue that a studio having multiple IPs that are successful of the level of the Arkham games would be evidence of them being a “great studio” - whereas having just the one super successful IP - even with successful sequels -  is just evidence of a “great IP”.

 

I mean, if a band has one great song, or even one great album… they don’t generally get canonised as a “great band”… that usually comes once they have more of a body of work. Where they can succeed while doing multiple things, you know?

 

I think if Rocksteady did follow up the Arkham games with something new, and it was just as good, it would confirm them as a “great studio”…

…and that would be awesome…

…but it’s not a guarantee- and in this case it’s looking more and more to not be the case.

 

A “Great IP” can come from anywhere, and we always hope every game can be one…

…but a “Great Studio” would be one that is capable of generating multiple great IPs, not just that one.

 

[VigilantCrow]

Honestly I haven't even heard of RockSteady. One fewer subpar dev team in the industry can only be a good thing for gamers.