All the Major Batman: Arkham Legacy Rumors So Far | Game Rant
Rocksteady’s Batman: Arkham Asylum released during a time when licensed video games were still fairly prominent in the market, more often than not resulting in mediocre cash-grabs tie-ins for upcoming pop-culture and animated films. Not only did the Batman: Arkham series prove that fantastic games can be made using licensed properties, it spawned four mainline games, four portable spin-off games for PS Vita and Mobile, Batman: Arkham VR game for PSVR, tie-in comic books, and much more.
Ever since the release of Batman: Arkham Knight, rumors of the next game in the series pop-up every few months from Rocksteady developing a Damian Wayne led Batman: Arkham game to abandoning the character entirely in favor of the Ninja Turtles or the Harry Potter RPG. WB Games Montreal, developer of Arkham Origins, recently teased its next project on Twitter after four years of silence and is said to be taking over the reins with Batman: Arkham Legacy, a new entry based on the Court of Owls. While it's impossible to know what's coming next, here’s a roundup of the biggest rumors for Batman: Arkham.
In 2016, DC's famous anti-hero group, the Suicide Squad were all the rage in the lead up to the DC Extended Universe film which released that year. Following WB Games Montreal's work on Batman: Arkham Origins and Arkham Knight, it was believed that the developer had begun work on a potential sequel that would focus on the Suicide Squad. Both Arkham Origins and its portable companion game Arkham Origins Blackgate feature post-credit scenes where Amanda Waller can be seen recruiting Batman villains Deathstroke, Rick Flag Jr., Bronze Tiger, and Deadshot.
Development on Suicide Squad was ultimately killed off by the Warner Bros. Executive team toward the end of the year due to on-going turmoil at the studio. Having been in development for at least two years, WB Games Montreal was unable to impress execs during greenlight meetings and were forced to move on to another game on this list. However, none of this has stopped a new set of rumors earlier this year claiming that Rocksteady is developing its own Suicide Squad game.
One of next year's most anticipated games is easily Marvel's Avengers, a story-driven action game from Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics, that focusses on the iconic superhero team. The only other super-hero team on the same level as The Avengers is DC's Justice League, made up of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman, and Cyborg. The Justice League has been rumored at Rocksteady multiple times but received the most traction in late 2018 after a mysterious post on 4chan for a game called Justice League: Crisis and an AAA job-listing at Rocksteady landed online in close proximity.
However, the rumors were soon shut down by Kotaku's Jason Schreier on an episode of Kotaku Splitscreen where Schreier called out the validity of the ongoing rumors and disputed the evidence. Earlier in the year, a new rumor sparked up about Rocksteady's development of a Justice League game after a new employee on the QA team Tweeted a job announcement with a Justice League GIF. The post was promptly removed and replaced with a new one and little else came of it.
When WB Games Montreal canceled its Suicide Squad project, the developer was said to have returned to the world of Batman, this time focusing on Bruce Wayne's son and the fifth Robin, Damian Wayne. Very little has been said about the game since news broke in December 2016 following the Suicide Squad cancellation, that is until concept art leaked online in August. The concept art features multiple images of a futuristic Gotham City, villains such as Two-Face and Gorilla Grodd, and an older Bruce Wayne.
According to known Batman: Arkham YouTuber Slcmof, these images had been sent to him years prior by reliable sources and are believed to be real concept art for a now-canceled Damian Wayne game. It's unclear exactly when and why Warner Bros. made the decision to cancel the game; however, Slcmof is well-known for this sort of coverage having recently played a larger role in the latest Arkham Legacy rumors.
After developing Arkham Origins and working on DLC for Arkham Knight, WB Games Montreal has been completely quiet on social media for over four years, until recently. Back in September, the developer resurfaced with a series of Tweets that teased an upcoming project, widely thought to be the long-rumored Batman: Court of Owls game. The phrase “Capture the Knight” was accompanied by a short video displaying a white symbol that transitioned between six different unknown logos.
First introduced in the first crossover for DC's The New 52 era, the Court of Owls is a secret society in Gotham that has influenced and ruled the city from the shadows for centuries. Made up of some of the wealthiest families in Gotham, the Court of Owls is known to kidnap children and train them as assassins called Talons; used to enforce their agenda. In ‘The Night of Owls’ crossover, Bruce Wayne is a target of the society and is forced to call upon the entire “Bat-Family” to aid him in the fight - a rumored feature of the game.
The latest round of rumors claims that the next game will be called Batman: Arkham Legacy and feature multiple playable characters from the “Bat-Family.” Originating on Twitter, a known source for rumors in the industry by the name of Sabi posted a series of tweets confirming the name Arkham Legacy, the inclusion of the Court of Owls, and that the family will be playable. Very little information is known about the game, but it’s widely speculated that WB Games Montreal is the developer.
In 2018, WB Games Montreal senior designer Osama Dorias briefly spoke about what the developer was working on in an episode of the Humans of Gaming podcast. Dorias stated that the team at WB Montreal has multiple projects in development that are all connected to the DC universe. “The project I just recently left, because there are a couple of projects at [WB Games Montreal], the only thing I can say is it’s a major console game, open world, DC Universe — so that’s really awesome.”
Whether or not the latest rumor ends up being real or just another dead end, it’s clear that Warner Bros. isn’t going to leave the Batman: Arkham franchise dormant for much longer. It’s been over three years since the last Batman: Arkham related game was released, four years since Rocksteady released Arkham Knight, and six years since WB Games Montreal’s Arkham Origins. Right now, all signs point toward a full reveal of Batman: Arkham Legacy at The Game Awards next Friday, so time will tell what's in the future for the franchise.
Batman: Arkham Legacy is rumored to be in development at WB Montreal.
Reviewed by Unknown
on
December 04, 2019
Rating:
Post a Comment