You have to believe that Rocksteady loves the Batman community as it decided to have a special gathering just for its fans, deep in San Diego’s Gaslamp district despite having their HQ in the UK and not having the game playable on the show floor. Announced kinda covertly just in the Arkham Knight forums, it was held at Taste & Thirst and was a chance for community members to meet some of the team as well as win some cool prizes and ask questions about the game.
Surrounded by LCDs projecting stills from the game and served by the friendly (and cosplaying staff), the event was run by Gaz Deaves (Rocksteady Studios’ Marketing Manager) and we talked about the title that will indeed serve as the studios’ last entry in the series. I can’t say that too many bombshells were dropped but we did pick up on a few tidbits that might be on interest to you:
The Batmobile
If there is one thing that we walked away with, it’s probably how excited the Rocksteady team is for the new playable Batmobile. They talked about it’s ability to transform into a more offensive vehicle, how it can be summoned to Batman and perhaps controlled independently from Batman as you play the game. As Gaz told us, the reason why it works so well is that it was basically put together by team member Adam Doherty who has been there since day 1 with Asylum and worked on Batman’s movement, gadgets, combat, basically everything.
The Riddler
Another interesting thing about the Batmobile is that we were told The Riddler wants to know everything about it. It’s a particular focus for him (who were told is more of an “engineer” in this game) as he wants to learn all of its secrets to use it against Batman. Whether that it is to literally turn the vehicle against Batman or break down its components to learn his secret identity remains to be seen but it’s an intriguing storyline either way.
The Upgrades
As we have come to expect, Batman will pick up upgrades through the game to either boost his “health”, gadgets and the like. But when asked if the different skins/suits that Batman will inevitably wear will be purely cosmetic or actually functional, Rocksteady implied that the upgrades will come in the way of new suits Batman dons throughout the game. Even though we’re obviously heavily speculating, we think it might be akin to how gadgets were dropped off via the Batplane in Arkham City but instead of sole gadgets, they could be entire suits (similar to how that game first started when Bruce turns into Batman). And that could perhaps make sense as Arkham Knight should showcase be the most seasoned Batman of all the previous games so true to form to his comic book persona, Batman always has the right suit for the job.
All in all, the event was really nice especially since it was an intimate gathering, the staff was great (picture here) and Rocksteady gave away a ton of items including collector editions, action figures PLUS limited edition lithos to everyone in attendance!
Look for the game early in 2015!