The tale of Rocksteady is one of epic highs and crashing lows. We’ll start at the beginning of the tale, when rumors of a special new Batman-focused video game emerged in the 2000s. By this point, The Dark Knight had already had numerous solo video games, but their quality was anything but consistent, and rarely good. However, when this new team brought Batman to Arkham Asylum for the “longest night of his life,” fans were intrigued, and things quickly took off when the game came out. It was a Game of the Year nominee and would start a new trend of how superhero games could be.
Things only got better when the team made a sequel, expanding Arkham into a city-state and adding even more legendary Batman villains to the mix. The game was a Game of the Year winner and is hailed as the peak of the franchise. Then, sadly, that’s when things started to go off the rails. You see, when they made the third entry in the franchise, they didn’t repeat certain things that made the first two great, including not hiring back famed Batman writer Paul Dini to help craft the narrative, thinking they could do it all themselves. Plus, they put in some questionable new game mechanics that really made the game feel sluggish overall and disjointed overall.
Sadly, that still wasn’t the final blow, as Warner Bros forced them to shift from a narrative-focused style to making a live-service game featuring the Suicide Squad. They were low before, but they hit rock bottom here, as the title flopped so hard that it cost Warner Bros a LOT of money, and many even feared the studio might close.
Fast forward to now, and Rocksteady is still going and allegedly working on a new Batman title. That’s good news in and of itself. However, they have also reportedly brought in an Assassin’s Creed veteran from Ubisoft Singapore to be their new Game Director.
His name is Bill Money, and his LinkedIn Profile confirms the appointment. Money served as a director on multiple titles in Ubisoft’s beloved franchise, including three of the entries in the recent series reboot. He also worked for WB Games when they made the spinoff title in Rocksteady’s franchise.
Will this help in the long run? It’s honestly hard to say. Rocksteady needs to get back to what it does best, which will be difficult, especially since many people from the first two games aren’t there anymore. We’ll simply have to wait and see how it goes.
