Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has dropped into a brief 72-hour early access period for Deluxe Edition owners—or at least that was the plan. A bug that accidentally credited players with full, top-to-bottom completion as soon as they launched the game forced Rocksteady to pull its servers down for around six hours, alongside another hour-long maintenance period.
Suicide Squad costs $69.99, while the Deluxe Edition costs $99.99. If you shell out for the pricer version you're also getting a premium token for a battle pass and some outfits, but let's be real—most people probably bought it to sneak in the door 72 hours early. Having seven of your 48 hours of exclusive gaming time lost to an unforeseen bug kinda sucks (I shaved off 24 hours for three nights of sleep, which is a hair optimistic).
As spotted by VGC, Rocksteady addressed the downtime and offered a make-good via an in-game announcement, which reads: "We recognize that you’ve been patient with us during our initial launch server updates and we’d like to show our appreciation for your patience with a special gift of 2,000 LuthorCoins. Thank you again!"
Two thousand LuthorCoins—that's a little on the nose, but Lex would get into cryptocurrency—is worth about $20. Which is around 2/3rds of the Deluxe Edition pre-order in terms of lost "value" for Rocksteady. Though it's fake game-money used to buy digital cosmetics, so it hasn't cost the studio anything (unless the Time Value of Money applies to LuthorCoins, in which case… I don't know, ask an economist, or Lex Luthor. He invented the damn things).
Standard bundles in Suicide Squad cost 1,000 or 1,100 coins at the time of writing, so you'll be able to grab two with your LutherCoin windfall. Legendary skins are just out of reach at 2,400 coins—though it ought to be noted that a 'legendary skin' is just one skin with all of its variants unlocked, according to some sleuthing by my fellow staff writer Morgan Park.
It's a token gesture for Deluxe Edition owners, though I'd imagine it's appreciated. Live service launches are always messy, and I do think this debacle is (as our UK online editor Fraser Brown noted) a sign that games ought to have an offline mode. It's also a cautionary tale: dangling early access as a way to sell your deluxe edition is a bad idea.
If you're going to insist on having your game be always-online—which Rocksteady will thankfully be walking back—there's no way to guarantee server stability or bug-free experiences when the thing launches. It's as they say: The only three certainties in life are death, game-breaking bugs, and taxes.
