Even Marvel's Avengers, officially dead, has more players than this.
In the long arc of creative industries, few falls are as instructive as the collapse of something built by people who once knew exactly what they were doing. Rocksteady Studios, architects of the celebrated Batman: Arkham series, watched their live-service shooter Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League dwindle to just 118 simultaneous players on Steam in April 2024 — a number that speaks less to a game's failure than to the widening gulf between what players seek and what publishers demand. The game launched in February to widespread criticism over repetitive design, punishing monetization, and a chaotic early rollout, and has since traced a trajectory uncomfortably similar to Marvel's Avengers, a title the industry already buried.
- A once-celebrated studio's ambitious live-service bet has collapsed to 118 concurrent Steam players — a figure so small it falls below games that have already been officially shut down.
- Players and critics dismantled the game at launch for grinding mission loops, expensive cosmetics, and a battle pass that locked characters like The Joker behind dozens of repetitive missions.
- The early-access launch was chaotic enough to poison the well before the full release arrived, and a modest Season 1 bump did nothing to reverse the freefall from a peak of just 13,459 players.
- The ghost of Marvel's Avengers looms large — that game peaked at 31,165 players, was still deemed a commercial failure, and was shut down in 2023, suggesting Suicide Squad is on an even steeper path to the same end.
- Warner Bros. Games now faces the question of how long to sustain a live-service title that has neither the community nor the content pipeline to justify its existence.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has reached a number that is almost difficult to say aloud: 118 concurrent players on Steam. On the same day, Helldivers 2 was hosting over 84,000. Fallout 76 had 30,000. Even Marvel's Avengers — a game Square Enix officially killed and removed from sale in 2023 — still drew more logins than Rocksteady's latest could manage.
The game arrived in February 2024 to a storm of criticism. Reviewers and players alike cited repetitive mission design, a story that squandered its characters, and a monetization structure that felt designed to frustrate — expensive cosmetics, battle passes demanding dozens of missions to unlock a single character. A chaotic early-access launch poisoned first impressions before the full release even landed. The player count peaked at 13,459 and has been falling ever since.
What sharpens the sting is what Rocksteady built its name on. The Batman: Arkham series defined how superhero games could work — focused, character-driven, narratively coherent. Suicide Squad was meant to be a bold departure, leaning into the dark humor and warped personalities of DC's most expendable characters. The concept wasn't broken. But instead of the storytelling that made Arkham resonate, the studio delivered a live-service grind engineered to extract money over time.
The parallel to Marvel's Avengers is both instructive and grim. That game shared the same structural problems — aggressive monetization, repetitive content, a live-service skeleton ill-suited to its IP — and was still shut down despite reaching a higher peak. Suicide Squad is burning through its audience faster, suggesting even less runway before someone at Warner Bros. makes the inevitable call.
The cruelty is that the bones of something worthwhile were there. The characters had personality. The combat had moments. But everything was buried beneath systems built to frustrate rather than delight, and a live-service game without a large, engaged community is simply a silence waiting to be acknowledged. Right now, that silence holds 118 people.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has bottomed out. On a recent day in April, Steam recorded just 118 people playing Rocksteady's live-service shooter simultaneously on PC—a number so small it barely registers as a blip. For context: Helldivers 2 was hosting over 84,000 concurrent players at the same moment. Fallout 76 had 30,000. Even Marvel's Avengers, a game that Square Enix officially killed and removed from sale in 2023, still had more people logging in than Suicide Squad could muster.
The game launched in February 2024 to a storm of criticism. Players and reviewers alike hammered it for repetitive mission design, a story that failed to do justice to its characters, and a monetization scheme that felt punitive—expensive cosmetics, battle passes that demanded grinding through dozens of missions just to unlock a single character like The Joker. The early-access launch was chaotic enough to poison first impressions before the full release even arrived. None of it stuck. The concurrent player count peaked at 13,459 in February and has been in freefall ever since, with only a modest bump when Season 1 content dropped.
What makes this particularly stark is the contrast with what Rocksteady had built its reputation on. The studio created the Batman: Arkham series, games that defined how superhero titles could work in interactive form. Suicide Squad was supposed to be a departure—a chance to play as villains instead of heroes, to lean into the warped personalities and dark humor of the DC universe's most expendable characters. The core concept wasn't inherently broken. The execution, though, felt like a fundamental misreading of what players wanted from a Rocksteady game. Instead of the focused, character-driven storytelling that made Arkham sing, they built a live-service grind designed to extract money over time.
The comparison to Marvel's Avengers is instructive and damning. That game had similar problems—aggressive monetization, repetitive content, a live-service structure that felt at odds with the IP. It reached a peak of 31,165 concurrent players in 2020, which sounds respectable until you remember that Square Enix still deemed it a commercial failure and shut it down three years later. Suicide Squad is tracking toward that same fate, but faster. It's burning through its player base at a steeper rate, which suggests even less runway before someone at Warner Bros. Games makes the hard call to pull the plug.
There's a particular cruelty in watching a studio with Rocksteady's pedigree stumble this badly. The developers clearly understood how to make the Suicide Squad characters work—the personality and derangement came through in the writing and voice work. The combat had variety and could be entertaining in bursts. But all of that was buried under systems designed to frustrate and monetize rather than delight. A live-service game needs either a massive, engaged community or a steady stream of compelling new content to justify its existence. Suicide Squad has neither. It has 118 people on Steam, and the silence is deafening.
Notable Quotes
The idea of playing as villains in the DC universe wasn't necessarily a bad one, but a disastrous early-access launch coupled with expensive microtransactions and a lack of substantial endgame content caused the game to fail.— Windows Central review analysis
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why did this fail so completely when the core idea—playing as DC villains—seems genuinely interesting?
Because the game's structure worked against the idea. Rocksteady made characters feel alive and distinct, but then locked them behind grinding and paywalls. The live-service model demanded repetition, and repetition killed what made the characters worth playing.
Is this just about monetization, or was the game itself broken?
Both. The monetization was aggressive, yes, but the real problem was that the game didn't give players a reason to keep coming back. No endgame, no story momentum, missions that felt samey. The money stuff just made the emptiness feel deliberate.
Marvel's Avengers lasted three years before shutdown. Could Suicide Squad get a redemption arc like No Man's Sky?
Theoretically, yes. But No Man's Sky had a smaller, more forgiving player base and a developer willing to rebuild from scratch. Suicide Squad is hemorrhaging players faster. By the time Rocksteady could course-correct, there might be no one left to notice.
What should Rocksteady do now?
Honestly? Cut losses. The live-service experiment didn't work. Go back to what they're actually good at—focused, character-driven games with real endings. The Arkham series proved they know how to do that. This detour cost them their reputation.
Is 118 concurrent players the actual death knell, or just a number?
It's a symptom. The real death knell was the first month when players realized what they'd signed up for. 118 is just what's left—the people too stubborn or invested to quit. After that, it's just a matter of time.