Batman: Arkham Knight, the final installment in the franchise developed by Rocksteady Studios, has had new details revealed on the open-world title’s gameplay mechanics.
During an AMA (“Ask Me Anything”) session on Reddit, Gaz Deaves, social marketing manager for Rocksteady Studios, explained that Batman’s crime-fighting skills have been improved through the development of the character’s animation, resulting in the Dark Knight’s moves looking even more polished.
“Zafer Coban and the rest of the animation team have been doing some amazing work on making combat look and feel awesome,” he said. “For example, there’s a scene toward the end of the Ace Chemicals Infiltration Part 1 Trailer where Batman faces off against two combat experts. Everything in that shot is taken straight from the game — we just shifted the camera to get a slightly more cinematic angle.”
Batman’s new Batsuit design was brought up during the AMA session and Gaz said that Rocksteady Studios went for the look based on the fact that it ties in with the Batmobile, a new game-changing mechanic being introduced to the series for the first time.
“We wanted to highlight the interaction between Batman and the Batmobile — you’ll see that the suit mirrors the design of the car in a lot of ways,” he added. “The new suit impacts gameplay as well, as it enhances some of Batman’s abilities, particularly in the way the Batman and the car work together.”
With Batman: Arkham Knight allowing players to use the Batmobile to navigate their way around the title’s open-world setting, the social marketing manager says his favourite new feature outside of Batman’s iconic vehicle is the ability to venture through Gotham City.
“It has to be the open city — now that we’ve got all of Gotham to explore it’s a great experience,” he explained. “The City design team here has done an amazing job building an environment that’s huge and intricately detailed. The detail in Arkham games was always my favourite thing about playing them before I joined Rocksteady, and it’s awesome that the guys have managed to keep that level of care on something so much bigger.”
Batman: Arkham Knight will launch worldwide on June 2nd, 2015 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.