Batman: Arkham Knight may still need more time in development, but much like Watch Dogs, its developers are not shy about sharing a lot of information about the game. This Gamescom interview sheds some light on the Gamescom demo and the Batmobile’s design.
The Gamescom demo is set in Ace Chemicals. Batman has traced where Scarecrow is manufacturing his fear toxin. However, when he gets there, he learns he has to contend with the Arkham Knight as well, who has brought his army in full force.
The demo shows off how much bigger the game is. Rockstar explained that their goal was to make a living Gotham City that felt like it would be the kind of Gotham Batman lives in, that is a perfect fit for him. As you can imagine, Rocksteady leaked a pivotal, possibly introductory, part of the game at Gamescom.
While Batman remains heroic, refusing to kill people, he seemingly has no scruples when it comes to tearing Gotham City apart in the game. Rocksteady has taken a naturalistic approach to the environmental destruction: if the Batmobile can feasibly take a building or structure down, it will if you hit it. Rocksteady also pushes the conceit that Bruce can always donate or pay for repairs when all is said and done.
Rocksteady consistently states how the redesigned Batsuit mirrors the Batmobile. They actually describe it as an opportunity to show off the cool tech that they came up with for the Batmobile.
Rocksteady’s Batmobile seems to be half sports car, half tank. They designed it with gameplay in mind above anything else. This is why the vehicle has been made nearly unstoppable. Design and gameplay came together in a way that it partly fed off each other during development.
Batman: Arkham Knight will be released on Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One in 2015.