Batman: Arkham Knight Official Reveal

[Learn2Eel]

Yes! It's finally happening! Rocksteady are back in the prime time with a next-generation console (NOT cross-gen) Batman game that looks to follow the trend of being even bigger and more epic than the previous iteration, City. I am of course ignoring the mediocre cash-grab (seriously, read up on what the developers think of fixing the game) that was Arkham Origins. IMO the only real developer for the Arkham games is Rocksteady, and boy does this look amazing. Drive-able Batmobile, actual city environment instead of a prison in a city district, Scarecrow leading the rag-tag band of villains surviving in the series (i.e. not the ones who died in City, I won't say who in case people haven't played it yet), and it seems to be a hint at a doomsday scenario too. I'm guessing Azrael will make a re-appearance after his teaser appearances in the first game and be central to the plot. It also seems like the rumours of the Bruce Wayne doppelganger/identity thief from City being the main villain have been discarded. Scarecrow as the main villain is certainly a great choice considering how amazing he was in the first game as well as his absence in City.

Seriously though, I'm so darn excited about this that it has managed to keep me up for an hour later than normal. Next-gen exclusive (and PC) so no being bogged down by current-gen hardware.....drive-able Batmobile (possibly the flyer too, they would obviously keep that under wraps)....return of Scarecrow.....apparent doomsday motif.....ARGH I'm so excited! By the by, if you are wondering who the voice over at the start of the trailer is, it is Scarecrow (the fear comment, the warped voice).

[url]http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2014/03/04/bak-debut-trailer-90348602352.aspx[/url]

[Mr Mystery]

Nice!

Must pick up a PS4 soon......

Origins was a bit of a let down. Whilst the story was good, it was too short and felt like it should have just been DLC for City.

[Learn2Eel]

Nice!

Must pick up a PS4 soon......

Origins was a bit of a let down. Whilst the story was good, it was too short and felt like it should have just been DLC for City.

What killed any chances of me getting Origins was the comments from the developers a month or two ago, along the lines of "we are not going to release further patches for the game, we are fully focused on DLC now" despite the fact there are still several game-breaking bugs and glitches throughout all versions of the game! As Rocksteady/Warner Bros have confirmed today, it was basically a rush-job to tide people over until Arkham Knight.

Some clarifications;

*Scarecrow apparently is NOT the main villain, he is just the focus of the Game Informer article. However he still seems to be the one doing the voice-over at the start of the trailer.
*The main villain is a character designed by Rocksteady, i.e. a character that has not been seen in any Batman media before. This isn't a new thing as Harley Quinn was originally created for the Batman Animated TV Show.
*Gotham City is 5x as large as Arkham City was.
*One character model (presumably Batman) has more polygons than the entire Arkham Asylum environment/game world. We are going to be seeing one good looking Batman game for sure!
*The same graphics engine (Unreal Engine 3). This isn't a bad thing as Thief shows you can still get next-gen quality visuals out of it.

*The Batmobile can be summoned at ANY TIME with the click of one button. The Batmobile is UNSTOPPABLE in game.
*Combat and Predator sections are similar, but expanded, just as how City expanded upon but didn't massively change Asylum's Combat and Predator sections.
*ZERO multiplayer.
*Arkham Knight is actually the name of the new Rocksteady villain, not just the game!
*ZERO LOADING SCREENS! The entire game world loads seamlessly.
*Up to 50 enemies on screen at once, i.e. you can try and engage a mob of criminals all at the same time. This presumably means civilians will actually fill the streets this time.
*All cut-scenes are done in-game.
*It appears that the Arkham Knight villain wears a heavily armoured batsuit with a big A in the centre...which I'll speculate on later.
*The Batmobile alone takes up 160MBs of memory....i.e. an Xbox 360 could handle the Batmobile alone and nothing else from the game.

On that second last part, you may recall I mentioned (mistakenly) in the original post that Scarecrow was the main villain, and the rumour about the Bruce Wayne doppelganger being the main villain was false? Well, it appears I was wrong, and it looks like those articles basically confirm it is the Bruce Wayne doppelganger that is the Arkham Knight. It isn't confirmed or hinted at in any way, but it seems pretty obvious to me. You have;
a) A rumour that the doppelganger is the main villain a month before the game is officially announced.
b) A doppelganger of Bruce Wayne. There are so many possibilities that could come of this story-line...
c) The "Arkham Knight" with a Batsuit with a big A. Hmm.

Apparently the ending of this game has been known by Rocksteady since they finished working on City. It's a possibility that the Arkham Knight could be a lot of people, really. I'm interested to hear everyone's thoughts!

I can't wait for this game....oh god I can't wait for it!

EDIT: There's a theory going around that the Arkham Knight is this guy....but Rocksteady said the Arkham Knight is a completely new character so I doubt it.
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_%28Terry_McGinnis%29[/url]

[eldargal]

Also playable Harley Quinn i you pre-order! I really, really hope they increase the female presence in the game from city which itself was improved from Asylum. Origin was terrible in that regard, but it wasn't made by Rocksteady.

[Learn2Eel]

Yep, forgot to mention that! I'm assuming it is like the playable Deathstroke in Origins, playable Robin/Nightwing in City and playable Joker in Asylum where they are only for challenge maps. If you actually get to play as her in the main campaign ala Catwoman in City then that will be amazing though!

[eldargal]

It just mentions challenges so far so unless they surprise us with story missions it will be like Deathstroke/Robin. I really hope they do include some story missions with a female player a la Catwoman though because going backwards ith female representation would suck. Batgirl would be ideal though if they surprise us with some Batwoman DLC I wouldn't object.