Rocksteady Studios’ newly released game has faced no shortage of problems.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has been plagued with bad press, online fan outrage, bugs and other problems for weeks now.
Most recently, an early release version of the game was pulled to fix a glitch that automatically completed players’ games, rendering it unplayable the very first time they booted it up, per Variety.
Compounding that issue: Those fans had to pay extra to purchase the “collector’s edition” that would allow them to play the game early.
But the worst news to come for Rocksteady is undoubtedly the following: according to Google Trends data, searches for “suicide squad refund” and “Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League refund” have skyrocketed in just the past few days.
WARNING: The following video contains imagery that some viewers may find disturbing.
An analysis from Windows Central claims that the term “Suicide Squad refund” specifically saw a 791 percent increase during the early access period, which ended with the game’s launch on Friday.
Even post-launch, a quick look at the updated Google Trends shows the term is still being searched with great frequency.
Is this game dead on arrival?
According to IGN, Kill the Justice League already had a surprisingly low number of players going online before the sudden interest in learning how to get a refund began to boom.
Multiple outlets appear to be attempting to cash in on the uptick in searches with articles showing players exactly how to get a refund.
On Friday, the same day as the game’s launch, DC Games Support put out a message explaining to purchasers how they can get a refund of the game on the Epic Games Store.
As mentioned above, Kill the Justice League has been riddled with controversies for weeks now.
Most of these center around the developer’s head-scratching decision to kill off and humiliate many of the most popular DC heroes within the popular “Arkham” universe continuity.
At one point, one of the main player characters urinates on the Flash’s corpse after the hero is unceremoniously gunned down, per Forbes.
Most controversially, however, long-time Joker sidekick Harley Quinn murders Batman, who is voiced by the late Kevin Conroy.
WARNING: The following posts contain imagery and language that some viewers may find disturbing.
Bro, they intentionally pan the camera to Batman’s death body like is nothing while the characters just talk. This is straight-up evil. pic.twitter.com/OjGVAgsbFI
— LearningTheLaw (@Mangalawyer) January 29, 2024
A bunch of fakers wanted to be welcomed into our hobbies just so they could make it queer then destroy what we love https://t.co/ve1vQCRBB7
— Melonie Mac ✝️🎮🖤 (@MelonieMac) January 29, 2024
But the backlash isn’t coming only from fans on social media.
Now that the game has finally made its way into the hands of reviewers, it is similarly being panned.
According to Metacritic, the game currently sits at a score of 63 out of 100, giving it a “Mixed or Average” rating.
