Former Rocksteady developers say making Suicide Squad felt like "following a spreadsheet" and nearly drove them out of the industry

Two lead developers who worked on Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League have spoken to Bloomberg about how the game's troubled development and disastrous launch left them burnt out and questioning their future in games.

The details:

• Designer Axel Rydby described a shift in how development meetings were conducted as Warner Bros. became increasingly focused on monetisation: "That's when I started feeling like I wasn't making games anymore. I was following a spreadsheet."
• Rydby warned the industry more broadly is moving in a damaging direction: "It used to be passion projects that you loved and hoped other people loved too. When they did, it was such an amazing feeling. It became less and less of that. It became: 'Let's hope it sells. Let's hope we get money from it.'"
• Director Johnny Armstrong described the toll of the game's prolonged development and poor launch: "I felt everything drained from me. I said, 'I can't do this again. I don't know if I'm done with the industry, but I'm done. I could feel myself coming apart at the seams.'"
• Armstrong also described how repeated small delays prevented the team from addressing deeper issues, creating a cycle of burnout and growing technical problems
• Both Rydby and Armstrong have since left Rocksteady and launched a small independent project called Secret of Circadia, currently on Kickstarter; the game includes an explicit anti-generative AI disclaimer
• Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League launched in February 2024 to widespread critical disappointment and poor sales, and was shut down in January 2025