Grave Gamer News & Views — batman

Absolutely gorgeous artwork for Batman: Arkham Knight.

Rocksteady Ends Their Batman Trilogy in the Next-Gen Arkham Knight

All good things come to an end, and Rocksteady’s expert tenure on the Batman: Arkham franchise, going back to 2009, has been more than good. It’s been brilliant. If it wasn’t enough that their portrayal of The Dark Knight and his gothic kingdom is one of the best outside of the comics he was forged from – even rivaling the character’s film appearances – Rocksteady went ahead and set the bar for the entire superhero game genre higher than Everest.

Batman: Arkham Knight, being developed specifically for PC, PS4, and Xbox One, serves as the final act in Rocksteady’s Arkham trilogy (2013’s Arkham Origins was handled by another studio, but you knew that, you keen reader you). “This is the natural end for the story,” said the game’s director, Sefton Hill. “We really want to go out in style.”

Revealed in this month’s Game Informer, you’ll notice a greater emphasis on the Caped Crusader’s favorite means of ground transportation, the Batmobile, seen only in cutscenes in previous titles. Now you’re finally licensed to drive the beast yourself. Gotham’s open world is being greatly expanded to accommodate this unarguably kickass new feature.

What’s a hero without his villains? One full year has passed since the arm-breaking spree Bats went on in Arkham City. Batman once goes on the hunt for a rogue’s gallery featuring Harley Quinn, Two-Face, Penguin, and the Scarecrow. If this is the final chapter, one has to wonder which of these madmen might be taking a last bow.

Batman: Arkham Knight releases October 14th, 2014.

Watch the debut trailer right hereabouts!

“It may feel like the Basil Karlo interpretation of Arkham – giving itself away as a mere copycat when pressure is applied – but Origins is still adept at capturing that empowering sensation of being The Goddamn Batman.”

WB Promises to Deliver Justice to Arkham Origins’ Criminal Glitches

Since the prequel’s launch one week ago, user have complained Batman: Arkham Origins is plagued by technical bugs. We’re talking a wide berth of issues too, with each platform host to unique, sometimes progress debilitating glitches.

Catastrophic framerate problems, AI lapses, falling infinitely through the game world, and complete crashes were all goof-ups Bats and I suffered since I picked up my PS3 copy last Friday. I even witnessed Batman break his One Rule when, after an interrogation, he dropped a thug into the depths of the ocean (that glitch was less frustrating and more spectacular, I hope I don’t have to say).  Xbox 360 users have reported the more heinous crime of both lost and corrupted save files.

Gotham City is a mess, and WB Games has heard your pleas for help. “We hear your frustration, we understand it, and we are here to find solutions to your issues by gathering the info you provide us, and relaying it to the dev team.”

Issues affecting every version of the game will be addressed first, including the “infinite falling” bug, glitches blocking story progression, and a fix for FreeFlow Focus not activating at its allotted rank. These fixes are planned to take hold within the week. The Xbox 360’s corrupted save issue, however, needs “a few more days” before its patch is validated and released. 

“We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused,” says WB Games, “and thank you all for your patience as we work to resolve the issues.”

The Arkham Game Universe Won’t Cross Over with the Movie-verse

Producer Guillaume Voghel, whose newly formed studio Warner Bros. Games Montreal is wearing the development cape on Batman: Arkham Origins, had some noteworthy insights for fans of the Dark Knight’s showstopping game franchise – specifically concerning any potential spillover from the growing DC Movie-Verse WB is building brick by brick. To clarify: there won’t be any.

“The Arkham brand is really independent from the movies and that’s something I think is at the core of its success; Rocksteady did that really well,” said Voghel to IGN. “They isolated the game from the movies and the Arkham brand will keep going in that direction if there are other entries down the line.”

Even the notion of Arkham’s story being told beyond the controller was squashed, with Voghel saying “it’s a franchise we want to focus on only through video games.” [There are, however, tie-in comics but the producer likely means we probably won’t see an Arkham Asylum movie adaptation.]

So no Arkham movies and, likewise, no movie canon, be Nolan’s or Snyder’s, will make it into the games anytime soon. That’s for certain. But what isn’t locked down is whether WB Games Montreal is to bat-tackle another title in the series beyond Origins or if franchise propagator, Rocksteady Games, is set to don the cape n’ cowl (of development) again.

Gulliaume wouldn’t budge on the issue but rumors suggest Rocksteady is working on something in the cover of shadows…