Suicide Squad Director: 'I Started Feeling Like I Wasn't Making Games Anymore' - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 03 July 2026 / 2,226 Views
Axel Rydby was hired by Rocksteady Studios in fall 2018 and started on Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League as its top designer. He would become the director on the game in 2022.
The director opened up to Bloomberg in a new interview admitting the experience on the game drained him.
The game was designed to be live service from day one, however, early on parent company Warner Bros. and the studio agreed to be generous to players, so they wouldn't feel compelled "buy a bunch of crap to enjoy the game."
As the game was delayed again and again the executives were worried about making their money back as the budget grew. Executives during meetings would ask "How many players can we reach with this feature?" or "How can we twist this design into something that can be more replayable?"
Rydby was worried the game was losing its soul and he admits, "That's when I started feeling like I wasn’t making games anymore. I was following a spreadsheet, some elusive marketing-analysis spreadsheet that no one could present clearly. I kind of felt like this isn’t the gaming industry I wanted to work in."
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League released in February 2024 and flopped. Warner Bros. took a $200 million loss on the game.
Rydby would leave Rocksteady in 2025 to go independent. He is has partnered with former Rocksteady designer Johnny Armstrong on an RPG deckbuilding game called Secret of Circadia. The game is currently looking to raise $11,404 on Kickstarter.
Armstrong also speaking with Bloomberg said he also felt burnt out after the experience of developing Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. He had worked at Rocksteady since 2010.
"We put all these hours in, but it didn’t feel like it was tangibly getting better," said Armstrong. "Everyone felt like they were having to run to stand still."
He added, "I felt everything drained from me. I said, ‘I can’t do this again. I don’t know if I’m done with the industry, but I’m done.’ I could feel myself coming apart at the seams."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
