Warner Bros. Discovery has reported its financial results for Q1 2024 and, perhaps to nobody’s huge surprise, it’s not great news on the games front after the launch of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League earlier this year.
The company saw its revenues take a sharp decline based on the same period last year, especially given that it was up against the results of one of 2023’s most successful AAA releases. It was already facing a tough battle to repeat that success, and so coupled with the shockingly flat response to Suicide Squad it’s a significant drop off.
WB Discovery boss, David Zaslav, has admitted to Suicide Squad being “disappointing” in an investor call following the publication of its quarterly results, with CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels reporting a $200 million USD impairment charge as a consequence.
“Starting with Studios, the $400 million+ year-over-year decline during Q1 was primarily due to the very tough comp we faced in games against the success of Hogwart’s Legacy last year in the first quarter, in conjunction with the disappointing Suicide Squad release this past quarter, which we impaired, leading to a $200 million impact to EBITDA during the first quarter,” Wiedenfels said (via IGN)
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League still has three promised future “seasons” of content to come, which are set to add new playable characters, new environments and more, though with diminished player counts and a clear lack of confidence from WB it’s hard to say how that will play out. Arkane Austin’s Redfall, a similarly cooperative-focused AAA live service experience, recently abandoned its roadmap –though with the significant difference that Xbox also shut down the studio.
We gave Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League a 5.5/10 in our review, with James saying, “Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League is a serviceable action game bogged down by an insistence on being a live service title. While the characters are well written and the comedy is on point, a handful of repetitive objective types betray the intentions of an otherwise strong combat system. There is potential here – perhaps over time, Suicide Squad can evolve into something better – but for now, it’s something that only absolute diehards will enjoy, and even then, that’s not a guarantee.”
