Suicide Squad devs have confirmed that gear score, one of the more controversial elements of Rocksteady’s upcoming co-op shooter, has been entirely removed from the game. However, the game is still very much a looter-shooter.
Suicide Squad comes from the studio behind Batman: Arkham City, and takes place in that same version of the DC universe. When Rocksteady started releasing gameplay footage (not to mention all the leaks), fans were concerned by all the live-service elements. One particularly disliked element was the inclusion of gear scores, seen in games like Destiny 2. For skeptical fans, it was another indication that Suicide Squad wasn’t the single-player Batman sequel they wanted. But now the devs have announced that gear score is gone from Suicide Squad.
On January 12, Rocksteady held a Q&A session in the game’s official Discord server. At one point, someone asked about the different rarity levels of loot in the game, and Game Director Axel Rydby, revealed that one of the studio’s “core design philosophies” on Suicide Squad was to create a gear system that didn’t “linearly increase in power” and offer a “clear path” to the best loot.
“In that spirit, one of the biggest changes we’ve made over the last year is to remove Gear Score from the game,” Rydby said. “This change means that players who find, for example, a Legendary weapon they just love early on in the game, can use it without fear that they’re shooting themselves in the foot (as it were) by not equipping a different gun with a higher Gear Score.”
Rydby further explained that instead of hunting for higher gear scores, players will now want to find cool loot that can work best with their build, playstyle, or their favourite gear.
“A big part of our endgame is to theorycraft which gear pieces that can synergize and how to construct builds. It’s one of the things I’m really excited about when we launch the game—seeing what crazy builds you all come up with,” Rydby said.
The rest of the Q&A goes into great detail about loot, making it clear that while gear score is gone, the game remains a co-op looter shooter at its core. Still, it is nice to see the devs respond to player feedback and rip out such a detested element of Suicide Squad. Will it help win over fans who aren’t excited about this upcoming game? Probably not. But it might help the game be better in the end.
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