What's in store for The Arkhamverse After Suicide Squad: KTJL?

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Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leagues live service journey has come to an end a little less than a year after it began. The labored looter shooter launched last year to rave reviews and outright derision from some longtime fans of the Arkham franchise for its apparent waste of the Justice League universe and its treatment of Arkham Batman. Diehards of the series were outraged to see their favorite version of the character, played in a final appearance by the late great Kevin Conroy, seemingly gunned down on a park bench without much ceremony or reverence.

But when the final of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice LeagueThe story broke earlier this week, Rocksteady revealing (in a somewhat underwhelming sequence of motion) that the game's title wasn't exactly honest from the start. The game ends with the reveal that the League is mostly alive and well, heading with the team's members into an unknown horizon. And with this latest entry in the Arkhamverse officially in the books, there are plenty of directions Warner Brothers could take their flagship DC video game IP.

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The Aftermath of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League paints a clear portrait of Batman's Arkhamverse

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League's story has come to an end and with it, Batman's Arkhamverse future has a pretty blank canvas to work with.

Where does the Arkhamverse go after Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League?

How did Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League end?

After players defeat the final Brainiac boss, there is a comical short-motion cutscene that concludes the game's story. It is revealed here that the League members killed by the squad during the story's main campaign were never actually dead. The bosses were actually Brainiac clones of the original heroes, with Superman and Batman helping the squad neutralize the last Brainiac before meeting up again with Flash and Green Lantern.

The story from Harley states that the squad was able to disable their neck bombs before escaping into various Elseworlds. While Wonder Woman was not cloned during Braniac's invasion and therefore actually died during the game's story, the rest of the Justice League set out to use the skullship's technology to right what Brainiac destroyed on all the Earths he visited.

The dedicated, loyal few who have stuck with Suicide squad over the past year will attest that this revelation of the league's survival is not an out-of-left-field twist. In fact, previous seasons have seen players rescue the prime version of the Flash and Green Lantern. It is clear that Superman and Batman would have followed, but Suicide squads poor reception and lackluster launch numbers likely left Rocksteady with a very limited budget to execute its post-launch content, including this ending.

What's next for the Arkham series?

This ending, underwhelming as it may be, leaves a number of doors open for the future of the Arkhamverse. There are many directions WB and Rocksteady could go after the failed experiment that was Suicide squad. To address the least desirable outcome directly, it is quite possible that this is the end of Arkham timeline and no more games will be produced going forward. Suicide squad was a major financial bust for WB, which planned for the game to become its own thriving live service title in the same way that Fate or Warframe. The weak response to Suicide squad could be interpreted as a lack of further interest in the series, where resources and funds will be allocated elsewhere in the future.

But there are many more likely outcomes. Instead of shutting down the franchise for good, WB will most likely see fan demand for a return to what did Arkham franchise so loved in the first place. It wasn't live-action looter shooter game with post-ironic joke-laden dialogue. It was a single-player action-adventure series that served as a faithful, serious adaptation of one of the most beloved fictional characters of all time. And most importantly, at least from WB's perspective Arkham games made money.

The Arkham the series is a proven moneymaker for the WB. Despite what happened with Arkham Batman in Suicide squadthere is still a lot of fan goodwill out there for the character and the original series. The overwhelming success of Arkham Shadow despite being on a more niche platform is proof that fans will still come out and support a Batman game that puts that character and his world at the forefront. WB clearly sees value in the Batman IP, and with the most popular version of the character now back from the dead, the stage is set for another adventure in Rocksteady's Gotham.

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Future games should expand the Arkhamverse further

The best Suicide squad did for the Arkhamverse was to expand the knowledge of the universe as a whole. Prior to release, there was precious little information about the world outside of Gotham City. Lex Luthor had a small voice coming in Arkham Knight and the game had a number of teasers that confirmed the existence of Metropolis, Superman, and the Flash. But beyond throwaway lines and visual Easter eggs, nothing was set in stone.

Now, with the introduction of the Arkhamverse Justice League, the foundation has been laid for an entirely new series in the original timeline. Despite the game's negative reception, the characterizations of the pre-Braniac Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, and Superman were all very much in place in Suicide squad. There's a lot of storytelling potential left with this version of the League, especially Superman, who has been denied his own AAA game for far too long now.

Of course, each character could have their own standalone game, but a true Justice League game with all five League members playable in a co-op environment would go a long way to convincing fans to move past the disappointment they felt with Suicide squad. Wonder Woman may be canonically dead, but her magical nature lends itself to a fairly simple resurrection within the story.

Kind of like Metropolis seen in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice Leaguethere has been a lot of damage done to the Arkhamverse. Still, fans can only hope that WB, Rocksteady, and DC can build this beloved universe even better than it was before, as Kill the Justice LeagueThe end has pretty much dried clean.

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