Batman Arkham Knight: What You Really Need To Know

The Dark Knight returns.

A year has passed since the events of Arkham City, and Gotham has begun to show signs of recovery. The death of the Joker ushered in a period of relative stability for Gotham – there were even signs of regeneration, perhaps redemption. In truth the villains haven't disappeared, but without the Joker's culture of chaos it's been more difficult for them to destroy the lives of Gotham's honest citizens.

This isn't the salvation Batman has been fighting towards, though. It's a moment of respite. The Joker's absence created a power vacuum in Gotham, and the Scarecrow – arguably Rocksteady's most original take on a Batman villain – has returned to seize control. He's threatening Gotham with a large-scale chemical attack, forcing the authorities to issue a city-wide evacuation. This is how Arkham Knight begins.
The prologue shows hysterical citizens jostling for spaces on school buses being used to ferry people beyond the city's limits. The roads are gridlocked. Time moves forward, and the streets become empty. Everyone's left – at least the hard-working, decent folk of Gotham have. There are a few cops behind, still fighting the good fight, but we see one shot at close range. His body hits the ground. It's brutal, remorseless, and as the camera pulls back, we see Two-Face and the Penguin standing over the wide-eyed corpse. The narrator tells us that Gotham has been inherited by "scum, criminals, and worse".
The camera glides through the streets, taking in the destruction – burning cars puke out black smoke and packs of wild thugs roam freely. The camera moves higher and higher, until at the very top of a large building we see a familiar sight. Every Nolan film had one of these unforgettable shots, where Batman – Gotham's watchful protector – was caught, in silhouette, silently surveying the city he promised to redeem. But this shot is impressive for different reasons. It shows the immense scale of Arkham Knight, but also how seamless it wants this world and experience to be.
The following hands-off demonstration lasted for approximately 30 minutes. Below are what I think right now are the most interesting or striking elements of Arkham Knight. I also spoke with Rocksteady's brand manager, Dax Ginn, who was able to go into more detail about certain aspects of the game.

The Batmobile

The Batmobile is undoubtedly the centrepiece of Arkham Knight. When I first saw it in motion, tearing around the streets of Gotham, its exhaust angrily snarling, I initially thought of Nolan's Tumbler. I think a lot of people will. This is a huge vehicle, after all, with gigantic tyres and the profile of a rhino, but the official inspiration can be traced back to Rocksteady's very first Batman game, Arkham Asylum.
I'd entirely forgotten but at the very beginning of Asylum the Batmobile makes an appearance. "That’s the first one we looked at," says Ginn. "We went back and had a look at what we have done before. If you look at some of the design features of that – the fins on the back, the pipes along the side – those features and those elements exist within this Batmobile."

Rocksteady's new Batmobile.

Rocksteady has got to a point where it's created its own unique embodiment of the Batman myth that it can draw upon itself, and feel confident in that decision.
"I think it’s fair to say we didn’t line up every Batmobile ever made, and pick and choose pieces. We first and foremost went to our own Batmobile and chose elements we wanted to evolve and carry over. We then looked at what this needs to do in the game."
And it needs to be an unstoppable force. When Batman calls in the Batmobile, it reminded me of the moment you request a Titan. While the game itself doesn't change, the dynamic and the way you perceive and interact with the world does.
The Batmobile is seemingly indestructible – you can crash through pillars and concrete walls without any really noticeable loss in speed. And though it looks like a tank, I also found it strangely organic – maybe it's those overlapping carbon fibre scales or the way it's chassis is segmented and flexes when you take a corner, but it feels more than just a machine.
There's also a lot of raw power. It's incredibly fast and agile, more than capable of taking tight corners and making large jumps. It's during the more agile manoeuvres when the design really comes to life too – little hydraulic fins on the wheel arches raise up to assist with breaking and the large exhaust lets out a fiery growl. While I don't know if I'd go as far as to say it's like a character, it certainly has its own personality and I think the default mood is angry.
Rocksteady is definitely treating the Batmobile like a character though, and it will have its own upgrade path just like Batman. "You saw the immobiliser rockets onboard – a non-lethal vehicle takedown gadget – but there are more abilities the Batmobile brings, but we'll be talking more about them later on."

The Batsuit

It's still Kevin Conroy, but Batman looks different. It's weird, he looks more like the Batmobile. The suit's more armoured and has sections made from carbon fibre. It's been done to underline the relationship between Batman and his car.
"The Batsuit was really our opportunity to integrate Batman and the Batmobile as one," Ginn tells me. "The man and machine idea, the synergy between them, was really critical for us. We were very aware very early on we have to make a Batman game, this isn’t a driving game – it’s still a Batman game, and so the interconnection between Batman and Batmobile aesthetically has to be as linked it is from a gameplay perspective."

Bat's new suit reflects the design of the new Batmobile.

This is most dramatically showcased when Batman calls in the Batmobile for the very first time. He swoops down from a rooftop in slow motion. As Batman falls, the car pulls into shot and almost appears as if it's going to mow Batman down – he jumps at the last minute, the car goes into a tail-spin, and Batman lands comfortably inside the vehicle. This is the set-piece, cinematic introduction, but it works in a similar way in the actual game. The Batmobile can be summoned at any point, and it will come find you, never taking more than a few seconds, and with a simple button press you hop in. You can call it in while gliding through the air, and even swoop directly into the driver's seat.
"If you look at the design of the Batsuit and you look at the design of the Batmobile, there’s really clear aesthetic connections between the two in terms of the usage of carbon fibre and the difference between large patches of low detail and then areas of intense detail is one of the philosophies that we had with the design of the Batmobile. When you’re on a plane and look out at the wing, the top of the wing when flying doesn't have a lot of detail on it, but when you land and the air brakes go up, the detail underneath that is kind of insane. It’s super, super detailed. That’s was the philosophy we had for both design of the Batsuit and the Batmobile. Areas that are very sleek and then patches that are insanely detailed."
I think one of the most interesting aspects of Arkham Knight's setup is this brief period of peace and prosperity that Gotham has experienced in the last year. Even though things have been getting better, Batman has been secretly preparing for the worst. Ginn tells me that he's been developing not only his gear but his abilities during this time. "He’s been preparing for the worst. Building the Batmobile and redesigning his suit, and all of the technical steps he’s taken to kit himself out puts him in a perfect position to meet the threat Scarecrow brings. Scarecrow is unifying the entire Rogues gallery – all of the super villains of Gotham City united against Batman. That’s a threat unlike he’s ever faced before, so he needed to be ready."

Gotham City

I'm going to say it. I prefer Arkham Asylum to Arkham City. I actually didn't realise this was so much of a controversial statement until recently. It's borne more out of a love and an admiration of Asylum's level design than a dissatisfaction with its sequel. That being said, I never found City to be the most engaging of open-world experiences. I liked it for other reasons. It was an open-world experience, of sorts, but you were confined to a part of the city. All of its best moments where spent inside. The open-world felt more like a plot device rather than a genuine sandbox to prowl. I wanted to explore all of Gotham City, but was quarantined from beginning to end.

It's going to be another long night.

Arkham Knight literally tears down the walls of Arkham City. I only saw the game in action for half an hour but already this feels more like an interesting, well-realised, surprising version of Gotham to explore. There are distinct areas, from the neon-tinged, richly-detailed China town to the grimly industrial makeup of Falcone's shipping yard. The city also unfolds more naturally and fluidly. Arkham City's map had memorable areas, but there was nothing much in between, knitting them together. And the introduction of the Batmobile has definitely helped shape the design of Gotham from the street-level up – "the shape of streets, the layout of streets, the location of significant landmarks – all of those things were considered as we were developing the behaviour of the Batmobile," Ginn explains.
And while I didn't see most of Gotham, it appears to be huge.
"That’s kind of the cool thing about having such creative control over the world we are creating," Ginn explains. "It can be whatever it needs to be in order to deliver the most awesome gameplay experience. It’s about five times bigger than Arkham City, therefore 20 times bigger than Arkham Asylum. So it’s pretty massive."
For those wondering if Gotham City extends to include Wayne Manor, unfortunately it only refers to the urban environment of central Gotham. Or at least, that's what the official party line is.

The Villains

I still think the Scarecrow sequences in Arkham Asylum remain a highpoint for the series, so it's great the Scarecrow is being lined up as one of the game's chief antagonists. Even more so, when you realise the narrative once again takes place over the course of a single night – this time round it's Halloween. So what can we expect? Unsurprisingly, Ginn wouldn't be drawn on specifics, but if the Joker was about embracing chaos, we should expect a more psychological assault on Batman this time.

The Arkham Knight owns Batman.

Of course, standing behind the Scarecrow is the new eponymous villain: the Arkham Knight. We know next to nothing about him, and Ginn wouldn't offer anything more than saying the character has been co-developed by Rocksteady and DC Comics. At the very end of the demo, Batman is ambushed by the Arkham Knight, who beats him to the ground. His silhouette resembles Batman, but there's no cape and his armour is more futuristic. His voice is digitally-altered, and refers to Batman as an 'old man' and says rather ominously, "This ends tonight."
And it does, at least according Rocksteady which is presenting this game as the definitive conclusion to its trilogy. Speaking to Ginn, it's clear that Batman: Arkham Origins, released only last year, was never part of the development plan or impinged upon this project in any way. This is the third and final chapter in Rocksteady's Batman story.

The Action

Combat has always been one of Arkham’s biggest strengths. The simple yet attractive system of combos and counters appears unchanged, but Batman looks more powerful then ever before – there are new moves, of course, and more varied environmental attacks; Batman grabs one of Riddler’s henchmen and crashes his skull into a nearby generator. There are new abilities too. Thugs with guns have always posed the greatest threat in the Arkham series, but towards the end of the demo, Batman makes light work of three armed guards using a new skill, the ‘Fear Takedown’ – it’s a way to quickly chain attacks and within seconds, sure enough, the three guards are out cold.

A few good men.

The combat is fast and brutal, and reassuringly familiar, but what has changed is the scale and fluidity of the overall experience. Batman can traverse the city at incredible speed, using either the Batmobile or his array of gadgets which have way more functionality than ever before. Batman can now use his grapple gun and line launcher while gliding, making him more agile. Actually, one of my favourite moments came when Batman fired his line launcher while gliding towards a group of criminals. It creates a tight rope between two buildings, onto which the Dark Knight perches and surveys his prey down below.
The first trailer for Arkham Knight was undoubtedly stirring, but following on from the release of Origins only last year, it's fair to say my excitement was slightly tempered. But this is a different game, and more like the one I've been waiting for.

Rocksteady is pitching Arkham Knight as the ultimate Batman experience, and having watched Batman eject from the Batmobile as it rips up the streets of Gotham, soar into the air, grapple onto the ledge of a nearby building, and cut that iconic silhouette against the backdrop of the city, it's hard to disagree.

Batman: Arkham Knight

Published by: Warner Bros. Games

Developed by: Rocksteady Studios

Genre: Action

Release Date:

United States: TBA 2014

Australia: TBA 2014

UK: TBA 2014

Also Available On: PC, Xbox One

Also known as: Batman: Arkham Knight