So this is turning out to be an intriguing Tuesday after all: a completely new Batman Arkham game in the offing! And no, you won’t have to wait until 2015 or whenever to play it — try Oct. 25, 2013. How’d they keep that under wraps?
Who knows, but Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment just announced not one but two new Arkham games: Batman: Arkham Origins, a prequel to Asylum and City for current-gen consoles and PC, and Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate for 3DS and Vita.
No, Rocksteady won’t be handling — instead WB Games Montréal has stepped in, which, well, it’s hard to know what that means, really. It’s a relatively young WB offshoot formed in 2010 with over 300 employees but not much of a track record at this point (it handled the Wii U port and update of Batman: Arkham City).
What about the game itself? According to WB:
Batman: Arkham Origins features an expanded Gotham City and introduces an original prequel storyline set several years before the events of Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City, the first two critically acclaimed games of the franchise. Taking place before the rise of Gotham City’s most dangerous criminals, the game showcases a young and unrefined Batman as he faces a defining moment in his early career as a crime fighter that sets his path to becoming the Dark Knight. As the story unfolds, players will meet many important characters for the first time and forge key relationships.
Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate, by contrast, is a 2.5-D game developed by Armature Studio (it handled the Vita port of Metal Gear Solid HD Collection). WB says this works as a “companion game to Batman: Arkham Origins” in which “players can continue the storyline of the console version and discover more details of the Dark Knight’s past.”
Game Informer‘s doing its usual strip tease, promoting its forthcoming issue and showing a few non-game art shots. If you haven’t seen enough of those over the past several decades, you can grab an eyeful here. And nope, there’s no word at this point on whether we’ll see next-gen versions or not.
May Cover Revealed: Batman: Arkham Origins [Game Informer]