With Batman: Arkham Knight having been formally announced only a few days ago, we're hungry for more information. Unfortunately, developer Rocksteady and Warner Bros. are holding all the keys to the Bat-vault, leaving us to rely on meager crumbs. Dry, rumoriffic, crumbs.
Case in point, GamingSmut received a letter from an anonymous source claiming to have legitimate information on Rocksteady's upcoming Arkham opus. As it's unconfirmed, take the following with a grain of salt. A big grain. The information from the letter as it appeared in full is as follows:
"* The City: Arkham Knight, much like Arkham City, is a open-world free roaming game. Players will not only get to explore Arkham City, but the whole of Gotham City too. Players will be able to visit some famous Gotham City landmarks including Wayne Manor, GCPD, the Batcave, Blackgate Penitentiary, and Iceberg Lounge. Gotham and Arkham City combined are approximately the size of the GTA IV map.
* Gotham Law Enforcement: The Gotham City Police Department play a big role in Arkham Knight. Batman will both need to aid and evade the heavy hand of the law. Arkham Knight will pave the way for some of the most intense cop chases in gaming history.
* The Batcave: The Batcave will be the player's safe-house and also work as a hub for operations and upgrades. Upgrades and repairs to the Batmobile and Batsuit will be done here.
* Bruce Wayne - For the first time in the Arkham series the player will be able to explore Gotham city unmasked. Cruise around the streets of Gotham as Bruce Wayne in fancy cars to investigate before you embark on missions.
* Wayne Enterprises - Money means upgrades and upgrades means power. Managing the finances and investments of Wayne Enterprises successfully will assure that you've always got the latest and greatest gadgets at your disposal.
Now, obviously, any rube with an e-mail address can write in with whatever amount of "insider information" they like. Confirming it as legitimate is a whole other matter, but let's play the part of the cynical detective for just a moment.
The City - an open, large, and explorable Gotham? Sure, why not? That's kind of been the premise of the Arkham series since the get go, with the environment of each game growing over the last. Game Director Sefton Hill already confirmed that it'll be "the biggest representation of Gotham City yet to appear in a videogame,"at five times larger than the one in Origins, which itself was double the map of Arkham City." Visiting Gotham landmarks? Again, don't see why not with spots like the Iceberg Lounge, but the notion that Arkham City is still up and running...Why visit it, especially if any number of inmates are already running around Gotham? Same goes for Blackgate.
Gotham Law Enforcement - seems believable enough, as Bats has had to contend with the boys in blue before in Origins, and with the car finally drivable, car chases are certainly not out of the realm of possibility. But going by the letter's admission that Knight takes place after Arkham City, ergo Asylum and Origins by proxy, you'd think that Gotham's finest would finally be willing to trust the cpaed crusader, especially with the comissioner as one of Bats' buddies.
The Batcave - Again, plausible. But the portion about upgrades and portions being done there is a bit harder to swallow. The batmobile to feature in Arkham Knight is nothing short of a tank, shrugging off bullets and explosions. The idea that players will have to maintain it is laughable. Same goes for the batsuit, which looks to have evolved beyond just a suit of armor to an incredible piece of tech. But to play devil's advocate, wouldn't you want to see the damage inflicted on the batsuit and batmobile? I thought that was one of the charms of Asylum and City, and even the character as a whole -- that behind the armor and wonderful toys, Batman is just a man, and is far from invincible. Seeing a damaged, bloodied suit ripped and torn really drove that point home.
Bruce Wayne - This is where I really begin to doubt the authenticity of this "insider's" information. The whole city has packed up and headed for the hills, the streets are full of criminal super villains with their own private army of thugs, and billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne is going to wander around with no one the wiser in a fancy ass ride? Not a chance. And who in their right mind is going to cruise the streets in a luxury car over the goddamn batmobile?
Wayne Enterprises - Again, laughable at best. Bruce is the heir to the billion dollar Wayne family fortune. I don't care how much bat themed equipment he's ruined over the years, he still has the kind of money that could make Saudi princes cry, and no need to manage it. Smart as Bruce is when it comes to keen detection skills, tactics, martial arts, chemistry, language, and God only knows how many other skill sets that make him an extremely effective hero, he's never been one for business, leaving Lucius Fox in charge of Wayne Enterprises day to day affairs. With the Arkham games following the open world genre GTA cemented as a standard, and the most recent game in the latter series allowing players to dabble in the stock market, I can see the author's fuzzy logic for this "addition," but this is a horrendous guess based on the notion that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Stocks and bonds have no place in a game centered on a billionaire who spends the better part of his nights pummeling the hell out of a superstitious cowardly lot.