A week after Warner Bros. admitted that Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League failed to meet expectations, the game’s player count seems to have dropped to concerning levels. On Steam, Suicide Squad’s concurrent players are peaking at a few hundred only, and it seems that things aren’t any better on consoles.

Suicide Squad player count doesn’t bode well for its future

As noted by Forbes’ Paul Tassi, less than a month after its release, Suicide Squad saw just 593 concurrent players on Steam a day ago, with the number dropping as low as 287. This is alarming for a live service game that needs a robust player count to justify the cost of keeping servers online.

PlayStation and Xbox do not have a system for revealing concurrent player counts, but Tassi noted that he hasn’t seen Suicide Squad anywhere in Xbox’s top 50 for the past week at least — not a good sign for a game that only just released.

Suicide Squad launched to mostly negative reviews, with its PS5 version settling for 60/100 on Metacritic. Warner Bros. revealed in a recent financial earnings call that the $70 game has “fallen short of our expectations,” resulting in its games business seeing a “tough year-over-year comp in Q1.”

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Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League‘s Deluxe Edition owners have been gifted $20 worth of in-game currency as an apology for the game’s early access server woes. The expensive Deluxe Edition came with the promise of letting owners play early, only for servers to be taken down twice.

Suicide Squad’s server woes make a strong case for offline support

Even before it released, Suicide Squad came under fire for being an always-online game, with developer Rocksteady Studios scrambling to assuage concerns. Players’ fears certainly weren’t unfounded.

Early access players ran into a bizarre bug that auto-completed the game for them after they logged on, due to which Rocksteady Studios temporarily pulled the plug on servers. Suicide Squad went offline again for a period of maintenance. Now, Deluxe Edition owners are getting 2,000 LuthorCoins as an apology.

“Thank you for being one of our first console players during early access of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League,” reads a message in the in-game mailbox. “We recognize that you’ve been patient with us during our initial launch server updates and we’d like to show our appreciation for your patience with a special gift of 2, 000 LuthorCoins. Thank you again!”

2,000 LuthorCoins costly roughly $20.

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As Hogwarts Legacy crossed 24 million units sold worldwide, Warner Bros. announced that its PlayStation-exclusive DLC mission, Haunted Hogsmeade Shop, will be available on all platforms in Summer 2024. The quest was expected to be exclusive for a minimum of six months, but ended up being exclusive for over a year.

Is Hogwarts Legacy getting the rumored DLC in Summer 2024?

Rumors of Hogwarts Legacy getting post-launch DLC started swirling shortly after the game’s release, but Avalanche Software didn’t confirm or deny anything. However, if a new tweet by the studio is anything to go by, fans have a reason to get their hopes up.

“We wanted to let our community know that the Hogwarts Legacy PlayStation-exclusive content will be available on other platforms later this summer, along with additional updates and features for the game,” Avalanche wrote. “Stay tuned in the coming months for more details on what’s coming to Hogwarts Legacy this year.”

Hogwarts Legacy recently broke a 15-year record by becoming the first non-Call of Duty and non-Rockstar Games title to top sales charts in a number of regions including the United States. This feat is particularly noteworthy because Hogwarts Legacy is a single-player game that was mired in controversy due to being based on J. K. Rowling’s work.

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Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League will support “hundreds” of build combinations across four characters at launch, according to game director Axel Rydby. Rocksteady Studios also pledged robust post-launch support, and teased a “huge” endgame.

Suicide Squad characters and customization designed around player choice and freedom

Over on Suicide Squad’s Discord, Rydby said that player choice and freedom is one of the game’s core philosophies, and the developers want players to “make each character your own.”

“At launch, we’re looking at hundreds of possible combinations and permutations for builds across our four characters, and this is something we’re adding A LOT to in post launch,” Rydby added. “We’re not supposed to talk about that today though, but I’m really excited for you all to see the cool stuff we’ve got cooking.”

Elsewhere on Discord, Rydby said that Suicide Squad comes with a “huge” endgame that encourages players to master their character. “Our core philosophy for endgame was, essentially, mastery,” he wrote. “Mastery of your character, traversal, talents, enemy types, mission mechanics and, of course, your choice of build.”

Separately in an interview with Play Magazine (issue 36), Rocksteady said that Suicide Squad is “easily” the studio’s “biggest game story-wise.” Following a delay, the title will release on February 2.

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Fans have their hopes up for Hogwarts Legacy 2 amid official confirmation from WB Games that the 2023 release was the best-selling game worldwide last year. Despite the controversy surrounding it, Hogwarts Legacy beat popular games like Call of Duty, with sales crossing 22 million copies by the end of 2023.

Hogwarts Legacy 2 seems all but confirmed as Warner Bros. teases more Harry Potter

In an exclusive interview with Variety, WB’s David Haddad expressed his delight at Hogwarts Legacy shattering records only held by popular multiplayer games year after year. “It’s not just the units sold that I’m so proud of, it’s just that it delighted the fans so much,” Haddad gushed. “It brought Harry Potter to life in a new way for gamers where they could be themselves in this world, in this story.”

Hadded went on to say that WB is designing the upcoming Quidditch Champions game to “delight” fans, and it’s also working on “a series of other things” that “will let the fans be part of this [Harry Potter] world and stories and characters in deeper and deeper ways.” What these “things” are is anybody’s guess but fans are convinced that a Hogwarts Legacy sequel is one of them.

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Hogwarts Legacy sales may just end up breaking Call of Duty‘s annual sales record in the U.S., according to data shared by Circana. As of the end of November, the Avalanche Software title remains the best-selling game in the U.S. despite being a single-player title with no DLC available at present. Call of Duty has long held the record for being the best-selling game in the region and remains the most popular premium multiplayer title.

Can Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III sales overtake Hogwarts Legacy before the end of December?

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III was released in November to poor critic reviews and lots of criticisms by players, but it instantly became the second best-selling game of 2023. Data shared by Circana’s Mat Piscatella also shows that Nintendo exclusive The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is now the third best-selling game of the year in the U.S., and PS5 exclusive Spider-Man 2 retained its fourth position year-to-date.

With December’s market yet to close, it remains to be seen if Hogwarts Legacy will actually break Call of Duty’s record or not. But that a single-player game is on par with the most popular multiplayer shooter around the globe is quite a feat.

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Rocksteady Studios has announced that its Suicide Squad game will be getting an offline mode. However, offline playability won’t be an option at launch, so players will have to wait for a post-launch update for the feature to go live.

Suicide Squad game was rumored to have been delayed because of offline mode

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League didn’t exactly have a stellar showing thus far, with many noting that its live service elements look pretty offputting. Back in April this year, journalist Jason Schreier revealed that the game had been delayed, leading to speculations that Rocksteady was considering removing the online requirement. Schreier disputed these claims, but Windows Central’s Jez Corden doubled down on them, stating that he had on good authority that Suicide Squad was delayed to “remove/rework the always online component.”

It looks like both Corden and Schreier were partially correct. While it’s true that Rocksteady is removing the online requirement eventually, it’s unlikely that Suicide Squad’s delay stemmed from that since the offline mode won’t make it to launch on February 2, 2024.

“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,” Rocksteady wrote on its official Discord. “We’re aiming to add this update in 2024 and will provide more details when available.”

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WB Games has announced an upcoming alpha test for Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, registrations for which are open now. Registration doesn’t guarantee successful entry, but you can try your luck with a WB Games Account.

What’s Suicide Squad’s alpha test for?

Suicide Squad is a live service game, and Rocksteady‘s looking to test its online infrastructure. As part of the test, participants will have access to a small portion of the game’s campaign, but WB has warned that Suicide Squad is still in development so the slice that players will experience is not representative of the final product.

To prevent any PR disasters stemming from unsavory videos, WB Games has made the alpha test “extremely confidential” and open to a limited audience starting Thursday, November 30 at 6 a.m. PT/9 a.m. ET through Monday, December 4 at 12 a.m. PT/3 a.m. ET. Participants are required to sign a non-disclosure agreement that prevents them from sharing or streaming screenshots, videos, and early impressions in any form. Participants are also barred from speaking to the media or content creators about Suicide Squad’s alpha test content.

WB Games has gone a step further to add watermarks with unique identifiers to catch violators.

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Warner Bros. has denied that its Wonder Woman game will be a live service product. Speculations of a live service title stemmed from a job advertisement published by developer Monolith Productions, which sought a lead software engineer — specifically for Wonder Woman — who is proficient in maintaining “a live software product.”

Wonder Woman game not designed with live service in mind

In a statement to IGN, Warner Bros. not only shut down the aforementioned speculations but also said that Wonder Woman isn’t being designed as a live service title to begin with. The job description in question has since been updated to remove any mention of a live product, so it’s likely that Monolith Productions used text from a prior job advertisement and didn’t update it accordingly.

“Wonder Woman is a single-player action-adventure game set in a dynamic open-world,” reads WB Games’ statement. “This third person experience will allow players to become Diana of Themyscira and introduce an original story set in the DC Universe, while also featuring the Nemesis System. Wonder Woman is not being designed as a live service.”

Wonder Woman was announced at The Game Awards 2021, but there have been no updates since. Platforms and release date window have yet to be revealed.

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Warner Bros. (WB) has said that it wants to “transform” its biggest franchises into live service games that aren’t limited to console and PC. In a recent earnings call, WB Discovery CEO David Zaslav that the company wants to attract more players across more platforms.

WB Games is happy with Mortal Kombat 1 sales amid criticisms of excessive monetization

Zaslav told investors that WB’s live service efforts are paying off, with Mortal Kombat 1 selling three million copies since launch in mid-September. The game has come under fire repeatedly for its excessive microtransactions, which include expensive premium fatalities.

“Our focus is on transforming our biggest franchises from largely console and PC based with three-four year release schedules to include more always-on gameplay through live services, multiplatform, and free-to-play extensions with the goal to have more players spending more time on more platforms,” Zaslav said (transcript via SeekingAlpha). “Ultimately, we want to drive engagement and monetization of longer cycles and at higher levels.”

WB said that it has a treasure trove of billion-dollar gaming properties, including Harry Potter and Batman, and it wants to utilize them to its advantage. “We are currently under scale and see significant opportunity to generate greater post purchase revenue,” Zaslav concluded.

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