The End of Arkham: Why Rocksteady Is Done With Batman

Hanging up the cowl to "control our own destiny."

Rocksteady is ready to end its time with the Batman: Arkham series.
Rocksteady made the decision itself, so it's not like Warner Bros. or DC Comics have had their fill of the UK developer's work. Rocksteady's Dax Ginn said of bringing Arkham to a close, "the decision was a vision from us that our colleagues at Warner and DC Comics bought into, and it was decided, 'yeah, let’s do that.'"
But why stop now?
"We’ve done all we can do here," Ginn says. "It’s…it’s kind of time for us to walk away from it."

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Ginn explains, "Anything we do is a collective decision between Rocksteady, Warner Brothers, and DC Comics. But it was something that we were really pushing for because we had a really clear vision for how this story should end, and the way we wanted it to end."
That finality comes by way of the Batmobile -- and a sizable Gotham City in which to use it.

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We’ve done all we can do here.

"For us I think the Batmobile is that final thing," Ginn says. "It’s such a critical part of the game, the epicenter of the design, but once we’ve done this, I don’t know we’re ever going to feel like we’ve missed out on a critical piece of what it feels like to be the Batman. That was kind of our driving force all along."
None of this is to say, of course, that Rocksteady's future doesn't involve Batman at all. Warner Bros. and DC Comics could tap Rocksteady for a bigger-picture look at the DC Universe, whether that's in a Superman title, a Justice League game, or a new brand of Bruce Wayne. But Arkham is over for the team, presumably to be continued with WB Games Montreal, the studio behind Batman: Arkham Origins.
So what's the future of Rocksteady?
"I’ve had a dream of us just shuttering the studio and walking away like rockstars, 'We’re done here!'” Ginn jokes. "Our attitude is, if we deliver on Arkham Knight, smash it out of the park, the opportunities we’ll have in the future will be massive. We will be able to control our own destiny in that respect."

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The team's focus now, of course, is accomplishing exactly that -- creating something special to send off the Dark Knight. Ginn points to the box art, of all things, to show what Rocksteady's aiming at.
"The color spectrum between Arkham Asylum, Arkham City, and Arkham Knight was something that we wanted to develop and explore…. That was a temperature spectrum that’s really interesting," he says.
Arkham Asylum has a cold hue, while Arkham City took a more neutral black-and-white stance. "Arkham Knight is the other end of the spectrum. It’s hot, it’s fire, it’s heat, it’s flames. So when you look at the trilogy of games there’s this really nice color spectrum…with an explosive ending."