It was at all times going to be a tall order for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League to emerge from the shadow of the mighty Arkham sequence. From an architectural perspective the recreation has moved from Unreal Engine 3 to 4, whereas from an artwork and elegance perspective assume extra multi-coloured Marvel comics than a darkish DC tome. From the shiny sunshine throughout Metropolis and vibrant greens, reds and purples, every character and enemy stand in stark distinction to the delicate and muted tones of Rocksteady’s prior video games. The identical wide-open metropolis is out there to you early on, and every of the 4 playable characters have their very own distinctive and quick technique of journey. Nevertheless, this presents one in all our largest points in terms of efficiency.
Obtainable solely on present technology consoles and PC, the recreation comes with a single efficiency mode on all platforms, apart from separate settings for movement blur, FoV, and different publish results. Fortunately that one mode targets 60fps on all platforms, however the stage of success on that entrance largely is determined by the console and space of play, whereas PC is a wholly completely different story. Beginning with the Collection S, efficiency is nice in the earlier, restricted sections, with a close-enough 60fps readout as you play, however the recreation struggles with streaming, decompression, and basic reminiscence administration when you get into the open metropolis and shifting quick with any character. This provides us some low 50s at factors and even some 50+ms spikes at instances, which trigger minor however noticeable pauses. The shift from gameplay to realtime cinematics and again is as seamless as the Arkham video games, and usually these run very properly at that 60fps goal.
The Collection X and PS5 are related however not excellent, once more holding a detailed lock on 60fps however each can nonetheless drop frames and stutter into the low 50s. Of the two, Collection X is barely worse, with it having extra streaming stutter and hiccups over the PS5. That mentioned, the PS5 can nonetheless drop frames, however it tends to carry a better, albeit largely invisible, stage of efficiency of roughly 10% in like for like sections. Anybody with a variable refresh price display screen will profit when these areas come up on all codecs however the lengthy stutters will nonetheless be observed.
Console Performance
Visually the Collection X and PS5 are a detailed match to the PC model working at the most Excessive settings, although with shadows and LoD down a rung and with out the ray-traced reflections that PC gives. Each output a full 4K goal, however the precise geometry maxes out at a counted 1800p stage on each with a low of 2240x1260p, highlighting that DRS is enabled right here. The selection between TAA or DLSS is just accessible on PC, pointing to the incontrovertible fact that PS5 and Collection X are possible utilizing TAA additionally. This does current a far cleaner and sharper picture than the Collection S, though the large hike in pixel counts and texture high quality is a giant cause for that. They each undergo from dithering artefacts and ghosting in the TAA which is why I’m inclined to assume that they use TAA and DRS. Whereas the Collection S depends on a hard and fast 900p base (from all counts) utilizing FSR1 again to 1080p.
Textures on the Collection S are of a decrease high quality than each larger consoles, stage of element is paired again considerably in medium to lengthy views, as is the shadow map cascade and backbone. Display area reflections are additionally disabled, which removes dynamic reflections and means much less mild bounce with darker shade to most surfaces together with lowered volumetrics. Total, the Collection S seems nearer to a mixture of Low and Medium settings when in comparison with PC. And evaluating it to Collection X and PS5 it does undergo, with a giant degradation in picture high quality and barely worse efficiency. Collection X does run with a better decision on common – in a single lengthy shot throughout the metropolis, for instance, it was a flat 1440p on PS5 and 1620p on Collection X. That is extra an educational distinction than one thing you’d truly discover, however exhibits that the wider GPU of the Collection X is getting used to push extra pixels.
PC Performance
PC is just not such a optimistic story of efficiency, with choices that allow a restricted stage of tweaking. Ray-traced reflections are a welcome however minor enhance over consoles, nonetheless they’re damaged on my AMD RX 6800 machine. DLSS will stay the default alternative for Nvidia gamers and the greatest stability of efficiency versus picture high quality. On AMD or Steam Deck you will have the alternative of TAA or AMD’s FSR1, which implies the decrease the base decision the worse the picture high quality will change into. With my RX 6800 and Zen 2 5600x at 4K TAA DRS Excessive settings to match consoles, we see a recreation that may maintain an honest stage of 60fps in these smaller battles and is usually a full 4K.
With Ray Traced reflections on, the elevated BVH administration, traversal and knowledge impacts CPU and bandwidth. On this machine, and certain much more highly effective ones, it causes horrible efficiency. As such, I merely can’t advocate ray tracing in any respect. With mid-30s and huge 150+ms spikes when travelling and combating via the metropolis, and because of the engine making an attempt to enhance efficiency, heavier decision drops do occur, simply as we see on the console model. The GPU utilisation can drop very low and typically any suggestions are moot as the recreation’s efficiency seems to be extra impacted by the code than the {hardware}, apart from disabling ray tracing, which helps the worst circumstances seen right here.
A Work in Progress
The lighting artists did an distinctive job right here in fill, level and colored lights. Many sections use distinct hues and shadows to emphasize temper, ambiance, or the wonderful fashions. Though they’re a step up over Arkham and Gotham Knights, a lot of this comes right down to materials high quality throughout all floor sorts, from the white boring matte paint of Harley Quinn’s face to the sub floor diffuse of Shark’s flesh. The animators additionally deserve large reward, with the combination of efficiency seize and key framed animation being a spotlight. The exaggerated expressions, winks, and enamel gnashing of every character portrays nice emotion all through. Eyes are unbelievable, with speedy motion, blink, and rolling including a substantial amount of realism with out crossing into the uncanny valley. The cutscenes shine the most and are the spotlight of the recreation’s visuals.
Sadly, the in-game motion falls from these heights, nearly as in the event that they have been managed by completely different groups. In comparison with Arkham Knight, it doesn’t make any huge and even small leaps. Town has much less exercise, fewer NPCs, and worse artwork course – the intensive use of purples and oranges in some sections is drab, and with the overly busy UI feels at odds with a few of the extra story-focused sections. Add in repetitive and samey enemies and missions that entail travelling round a metropolis with little appeal, and the recreation loses a lot of the identification that Arkham Metropolis and Knight had. Even the water is just not pretty much as good. Animation cycles and blends are a mixture of re-use and awkwardness, resembling Harley’s gangly run and swing or Shark’s leap and strike assaults. I discovered little in the gameplay artwork or fashion that impressed me all through play.
Abstract
Killing the Justice League is in the title, however killing the greatest Batman trilogy in video games is one thing else totally. The sport has some wonderful fashions and humorous moments and cutscenes, however in the roughly 9 years since the final Arkham recreation, it nonetheless hangs on to the similar core engine and coattails of that nice trilogy. Suicide Squad gives little new or spectacular components from a visible, audio, and even gameplay perspective. Performance is nice however not nice, with traditional knowledge streaming stutter, which impacts the PC model the most and is why console variations are advisable over that. Satirically, Gotham Knights additionally fell in need of the Arkham sequence, however in hindsight it did many issues higher than this newest entry from Rocksteady.