Injustice 2 Meets its Squad Goals With Harley Quinn and Deadshot

This week at Gamescom, NetherRealm Studios unleashed its latest two roster additions to Injustice 2 upon the world. Fresh off their starring turns in Suicide Squad, both Harley Quinn and Deadshot will be front and center when the DC fighting game sequel hits shelves next year. Harley Quinn's return was about as easy to predict as the inclusion of the Trinity, but Deadshot is a bit of a surprise addition that gives Injustice 2 a bit more ranged variety.

Both are shown off in the latest trailer, which also gives us a glimpse at a number of armor variations you can earn for the Suicide Squad members.

As a returning character, I'm actually surprised to see how different Harley is from the previous game. Maybe not so much that's she's different, but how much closer to the current cinematic and comic book universe iterations she has become. Injustice has always been off in its own little corner of the world, but seeing Harley adopt more recent flourishes like the blonde hair with fading highlights, the baseball bat, and the jacket (even if this one is leather not satin) speaks volumes about how important the character's signature style is to brand unity. Before you could basically do whatever with Harley --- how many different costumes did she have in the Arkham series? --- but now there's a clear focus to maintain her appearance on all fronts. At least initially anyway.

Like every other character in Injustice 2, you'll be able to customize your Harley Quinn with the armor mechanic being introduced in this sequel. Just in this trailer alone, you can see dozens of permutations in the three different outfits she's shown wearing. There's even a nice throwback headpiece in there to homage her animated beginnings. All of them still follow a bit of a biker chic style though, which is a bit of a turn from her last Injustice appearance.

Deadshot --- who sounds suspiciously like Troy Baker --- doesn't get quite as many costume sneak peeks as Harley, but he does certainly show off most of his arsenal. As a wholly new character for the console game, this Deadshot mixes up some classic incarnation with some of the more modern Suicide Squad film elements. Thankfully he avoids the New 52 and DC Rebirth designs. Those are probably my least favorite Deadshot costumes, and this one is a bit more true-to-life and seemingly practical. It'll be interesting to see what kind of armor elements make their way into the game for him, and if they change any of his armaments as well.

His footage is absolutely brutal though. Despite being reliant on ballistic weapons, Deadshot has a lot of up-close attacks thanks to his wrist guns. He'll be able to deal intense damage combos from anywhere on screen it would appear. And that super move? That's a well-edited attack animation. I say that now only having to have watched it a few times. It's no "flying a character around the sun and shooting them back to Earth with heat vision," but it suits Deadshot just as fine as Supergirl's.

Injustice 2 will be available on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2017.