Rumour: Warner Bros are internally talking about closing Rocksteady after Suicide Squad disaster (2024)

One of the lowest-rated AAA games of 2023 Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League could be the end of the beloved game developer Rocksteady Studios.

According to the insider information received by entertainment commentator Vara Dark, Warner Bros. are considering shutting down the studio for good, or at least laying off half of the employees.

"Warner Bros is internally talking about closing Rocksteady or halving their 250 employees after Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League's bomb,"Dark posted on social media X.

The post also states that Rocksteady Studios which players know and love for the beloved Batman Arkham series does not exist anymore as founders Jamie Walker and Sefton Hill and many other developers departed the company over the last couple of years.

Walker and Hill left in 2022 to establish a new studio called Hundredstar Studios, and are reportedly working with Xbox on a brand-new single-player action adventure.

Anyway, since the source for this particular rumour is not really known within the gaming industry, I suggest you take everything with a grain of salt until someone more reliable confirms this story.

While Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League was indeed a big blow for Warner Bros., resulting in a mammoth loss of $200 million, according to Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav, the decision to shut down the studio completely would probably be a bit too rash.

But on the other hand, we had some shocking studio closures already this year, namely the shutdown of Hi-Fi Rush developer Tango Gameworks and three other Bethesda studios and the reported imminent closure of Private Division, so nothing would surprise me anymore.

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League was imagined as a live service title with regular post-launch updates, as part of Warner Bros' strategy to shift their video game development focus from single-player games to more co-op and multiplayer releases.

The irony is that the publisher's most successful video game ever - Hogwarts Legacy - is purely a single-player action-adventure so perhaps Warner Bros. should reevaluate their priorities and greenlight projects that players actually want to see.

Another example of how poorly Warner Bros. have handled their video game franchises lately is the Batman IP. The Arkham trilogy is one of the greatest action-adventure franchises ever made but for some reason, Warner Bros. didn't follow up with new AAA games featuring Dark Knight as the protagonist.

Even the spin-off title Gotham Knights didn't sit well with the fans, who were pretty adamant that they would rather play a Batman game than WB Games Montreal's co-op adventure.

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