Rocksteady Studios, the British developer behind the Batman Arkham games, has reportedly been hit by layoffs. The layoffs are said to have primarily affected the studio’s quality assurance (QA) department. The reported layoffs at Rocksteady come after the Warner Bros. Games studio’s latest title, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, sold poorly following its launch in February.
Fired from Rocksteady
According to a Eurogamer reportLayoffs have caused Rocksteady’s QA department to nearly halve in the past month. The studio’s employees told the publication that the QA department, which once included 33 team members, has now been reduced to 15. The poor commercial performance of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League was cited as the reason behind the “restructuring” effort.
Layoffs are also said to have affected staff members outside of QA. According to the report, one employee was notified of his layoff while on paternity leave. Rocksteady or its parent company Warner Bros. have not yet confirmed the layoffs.
According to employees, Rocksteady’s senior management has acknowledged that the layoffs will impact the studio’s product quality going forward.
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League led to losses at Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Games launched Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League earlier this year, leaning heavily on its live service model. The game was a critical and commercial failure, peaking at 13,459 simultaneous players on Steam. In its Q1 2024 earnings call in May, Warner Bros. revealed that it would incur a loss of $200 million (roughly Rs. 1,679 crore) on Suicide Squad. “Games revenue declined significantly due to the success of Hogwarts Legacy in the prior year quarter, while the release of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League in the first quarter of this year generated significantly lower revenue,” the company said in its Q1 Earnings Report.
Last month, during its 2024 quarterly earnings report, Warner Bros. reported that games revenue declined 41 percent year-over-year, “primarily driven by the weak performance of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League this year, compared to the strong performance of Hogwarts Legacy last year.”
Despite the failure of Suicide Squad, Warner Bros. has committed to the games as a service model and plans to pivot its biggest franchises into live-service games. “We think there’s an opportunity to take those four franchises and develop a much more holistic approach, particularly around expanding into the mobile and multi-platform free-to-play space, which can give us a much better and more consistent revenue stream,” JB Perrette, CEO and President, Global Streaming and Games at Warner Bros. Discovery, said at a conference in March.
Gadgets 360 noted in its 6/10 review that Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League was severely hampered by its live-service model, with “baffling design choices, a mundane mission structure, and an unclear identity” working against the game’s strengths.
