Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment today released the trailer for the launch of Batman: Arkham City, the sequel to the praised Batman: Arkham Asylum, adapted from the DC Comics core Batman License.
Arkham City is a third-person brawler with a non-linear story-line and massive world to explore—five times the area of the previous game. An entire district of Gotham has been turned over to the growing population of crazy criminals released from Arkham Asylum, and the city has given up on controlling this dangerous part of town, instead just walling it up and letting the monsters inside deal with one another. It’s up to the Dark Knight to go in there and beat all of them up one at a time.
(Note: the release date in the video is for the UK)
From the trailer, it looks like Batman’s skills have broadened from the first game and the focus on exploration will deepen the atmosphere significantly—if it’s done correctly (done poorly, of course, it would become boring, forcing the player to guide Batman over an infinite number of rooftops). The closer to the play style of Assassin’s Creed (since the characters and themes are very similar) the better, in my opinion.
There are also quite a few major villains in here, including Joker, Two-Face, Penguin, Hugo Strange, and Mister Freeze. Mark Hamill has returned to voice the Joker, as he did in the previous title. The character animations and motion capture look a bit better than Arkham Asylum, but still fall below where I would expect a game of this budget.
Other new features include a new story written by award-winning graphic novel author Paul Dini, lots of new gadgets and weapons, and the ability to play through as Catwoman for a whole different story and weapon-set
Batman: Arkham Asylum, developed by Rocksteady Studios will be out for the Xbox 360, PS3, and games for Windows on 18 October 2011. More information can be found on the game’s official website.
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