Sefton Jill and Jaime Walker, co-founders and studio heads of game studio Rocksteady, have left the studio ahead of its release of the upcoming Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League.
The departures were revealed in a letter shared this morning on the Rocksteady website by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment president David Haddad. Haddad explained that the two “decided to leave Rocksteady at the end of 2022 and will begin a new adventure in gaming,” but did not reveal where they will be going or what they will be working on. Replacing them are Nathan Burlow, another founding member of Rocksteady who will become the studio director, and Darius Sadeghian, who will become the new studio product director.
Rocksteady is best known for its work on games related to WB and DC properties, including the critically acclaimed Arkham trilogy centered around Batman. The studio is currently working on Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, which was originally planned for release in 2022 but was delayed to spring 2023 earlier this year. Rocksteady has not released a game since Arkham Knight in 2015.
Gotham Knight, a game based on the Arkham series, was released on Oct. 21 to middling reviews, leading to discussion as to whether this affected Jill and Walker’s decision to leave despite the fact that the game was not developed by Rocksteady. Others have speculated that leaving just before Suicide Squad launches is not a vote of confidence in the game’s direction. From the trailers shown so far, Suicide Squad is a very different game than the Arkham series, leading some players to wonder what will become of the game when it releases.
