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Rocksteady cuts staff following Suicide Squad's underperformance

The layoffs largely hit Rocksteady's QA team, which sources said will negatively affect the developer's product quality.

Justin Carter, Contributing Editor

September 3, 2024

1 Min Read
Key art for 2024's Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.
Image via Rocksteady/WB Games.

Eurogamer reported layoffs at Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League studio Rocksteady.

On Monday, the outlet said the developer's QA team was effectively cut in half from 33 staffers to 15. Other departments were affected, though at time of writing, the total number of redundancies is unclear.

Junior and tenured staff were among those let go. Senior management has reportedly acknowledged product quality will "suffer" with the QA culling, which included employees with "specialized knowledge."

Sources told Eurogamer the anti-hero shooter's poor sales were a direct reason for the cuts. Warner Bros. Discovery has been open about the game's commercial underperformance, even as recently as last month.

Suicide Squad's hits keep on coming

Similar to the recently scrapped Concord, the saga of Suicide Squad has largely been met with negativity.

A Bloomberg report from June claimed Squad's issues were caused by a lack of clear direction and Rocksteady (whose previous works were single-player) not having the mentality of a multiplayer studio.

Developers also alleged management would meet their concerns with "toxic positivity," and thought things would work out in the end. This mentality even spread to Warner Bros itself, which sunk a reported $200 million into the project.

Even with this, Rocksteady will stick with Suicide Squad. WB stressed the studio would see the first year of post-launch content through to the end. It's unknown how long the game will remain around after that point.

About the Author

Justin Carter

Contributing Editor, GameDeveloper.com

A Kansas City, MO native, Justin Carter has written for numerous sites including IGN, Polygon, and SyFy Wire. In addition to Game Developer, his writing can be found at io9 over on Gizmodo. Don't ask him about how much gum he's had, because the answer will be more than he's willing to admit.

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