The Batman sequel won’t be a tightly-scripted action game or a “generic” open world but somewhere in between.
Arkham Asylum, our 2009 Game of the Year, was an excellent action brawler that was fairly linear in its execution even though the player could choose how to go about finishing the story. For its sequel, Arkham City, Rocksteady Studios wanted to push the boundaries of where Batman can range as far as possible, but cofounder Sefton Hill doesn’t want to abandon the detail and style that he infused in Asylum.
“We never had any desire to make the biggest open-world game ever,” Hill said, referring to the sheer amount of real estate in Arkham City. “Our goal was to take the care and attention to detail that made Arkham Asylum work, and apply this same philosophy to a much bigger canvas. We feel that it’s something that’s never really been done before.”
For Hill, there had to be a middle ground between Asylum and a vast but largely empty city like in L.A. Noire. “Most action games fall into two categories – they’re either a hand-crafted, tight, focused package or a sprawling open world filled with generic content. We felt there was a really interesting middle ground, with the best of both approaches,” he said.
Arkham City does so by using the quest hubs of Asylum and applying that concept over a much larger space. “We wanted to create a city absolutely crammed full of gameplay and story everywhere you turned,” Hill said.
After getting a glimpse of the teaser for The Dark Knight Rises last week and ranging all over Gotham City in DCUO, I’m pretty excited to see how Rocksteady pulls off its attempt to outdo what many consider the best Batman videogame ever made. Arkham City comes out on October 21st for PS3, Xbox 360 and the PC and no doubt I will be playing it that day.
Source: Edge Magazine via Videogamer
