Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is starting to look like maybe it might be better than it first appeared, but one big knock against it for me and an awful lot of others out there is its connectivity requirement: You have to be online to play, even if you want to play by yourself. If there's one thing we've learned from games like Payday 3, that can be a real headache when the servers can't keep up, or worse, go offline for good. And there's the simple principle of the thing too, which is what really chaps me. Why should I have to be online to play by myself?
Luckily, it appears that requirement will be going away sometime after launch. Following the release of the new Suicide Squad trailer at The Game Awards last night, a Rocksteady rep said on Discord that an offline mode is coming as a post-launch update.
"In addition to our latest trailer, we also have some news to share," Rocksteady rep EpicYeti wrote. "We're happy to confirm, we are planning to add an offline story mode that will give players the option to experience the main campaign without an internet connection. We’re aiming to add this update in 2024 and will provide more details when available."
Suicide Squad seems pretty clearly intended for multiplayer shenanigans, but you can play solo just as well, swapping between characters (or not, if you really prefer just one of them) at will. "Whether in single player or online with up to three of your friends, players can take on this suicide mission their own way," the Steam page says—except, that is, offline.
That makes this announcement a pretty big deal. It's a shame (and a little baffling) that we'll have to wait until later in 2024 to get it but at least we know it's coming, and perhaps with a little dash of added optimism we might even dare hope that game studios are starting to realize that singleplayer campaigns should not have multiplayer requirements. And with handheld PC gaming starting to take off, we're signing into Steam offline more often than ever.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is set to come out on February 2, 2024, and will be available for PC on Steam and Epic.
