It was ”obviously very liberating” for the team, and they feel fans appreciated the ”respect” they showed this ”powerful, and vulnerable character”.
”It was great for us that we weren’t tied to the film licence,” said Rocksteady co-founder Sefton Hill. “There’s just so much Batman history beyond its films, and we drew ideas from all of that.” Warner could have easily tied them to The Dark Knight flick.
”Warner said to us, ‘there is seventy years of Batman history, go and embrace it.’ That was obviously very liberating.” There’s huge disparity between the time it takes for a movie to start and reach completion than it does a videogame - Warner paid attention.
”I think what people really appreciated was our respect for the Batman licence and the character,” says Hill. “We felt our game was a chance to really experience what it was like to be this amazing Batman character. I think that’s what we did that’s a bit different from other superhero games.” Arkham Asylum takes place solely in the facility grounds.
”We didn’t have any excuses because we were designing a Batman game. We simply wanted to show you what it is like to be this powerful, and vulnerable character.”
”There’s obviously a lot of things that Batman can’t do,” he added, “but those sort of things aren’t restrictive to the development of the game like a film licence is; those sort of things more define him as a character.”
“Batman’s own limitations made us approach the game’s design in different ways. Batman doesn’t kill, he doesn’t use guns in a gun fight, so we thought hard about how we were going to make the player feel powerful.”
“Now that can be quite a limiting factor for a designer, but it takes out the easy option, makes us think harder about what we’re doing. It makes you come up with ideas and play mechanics that are more interesting.”
Rocksteady is busy with Batman: Arkham City the sequel to their first awesome instalment, which has us using gadgets and our fists to give insane thugs a beat down. It releases on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC during Q4 2011. Excited for it?
