Preview: Batman: Arkham City

PREVIEW: Theoretically, nothing was Rocksteady Studios from releasing a glorified expansion pack as their sequel to critical darling and gamer favourite, Batman: Arkham Asylum. Slap together some new levels, introduce a few new villains, and voila - the rivers of gold would flow once more.

However Rocksteady opted to go back to the drawing board from a level design perspective with Batman: Arkham City. As the name suggests, the game's scope has broadened. Arkham City is a sprawling, criminal-infested suburb walled off from Gotham via sinisterly bureaucratic finagling. The rules for occupants of Arkham City are basic: do whatever you like within the district's walls but should you try to escape, you'll be killed.

The setup will matter more when the game is on sale. But the impact of Rocksteady's move to a city layout is relevant to gamers right now. The Arkham City experience is both indoor and outdoor. You get the rich interiors we first saw in Arkham Asylum, only now the caped crusader is equally free to roam the city.

SANDBOX OR NO?

Exploring the great outdoors is one thing, but you won't find Rocksteady describing Arkham City's gameplay as "open world". You can traverse the entire breadth of the city if you please, but the experience remains a very directed one.

"When you talk about genres - about sandbox and linear and whatever is in between - the important thing for us to focus on was a sandbox game has connotations of playing around and setting your own pace," Rocksteady marketing manager Dax Ginn told us. "Doing what you want, when you want... that really runs against the grain of what we think a Batman experience is."

"At no point do you feel as though you're collecting 50 things just to kill a bit of time while there's this crisis going on you need to be resolving," he added.

Rocksteady are playing their cards close to their chest still, however Ginn did explain one obvious benefit of opening up Arkham City's terrain.

"To think about the degree to which it is sandbox - it really comes down to navigational freedom. But in terms of what you can do in Arkham City, it's very driven by the way Batman interacts with the other characters," he concluded.

This freedom of navigation, Ginn says, is something that was missing from the acclaimed prequel.

"Arkham Asylum, for all the things it did brilliantly, was a very highly focused, highly choreographed experience," he noted. "The big challenge we set for the development of Arkham City was to take the experience to the next step and offer players that freedom to determine their own destiny - where they go and what they do. "

TRAVERSAL

Before we jump into the meat, it's got to be noted Rocksteady has exerted a high level of control over what it's shown so far with Arkham City. There have been no hands-on demonstrations for media, only guided gameplay demonstrations run by Rocksteady staff.

Even so, it's hard not to be impressed by how Rocksteady set the stage for showcasing Batman's outdoor debut. The brooding vigilante takes in the murky sweep of Arkham City's decrepit vista from a lofty vantage point. The framerate remains smooth as he sweeps his gaze across 360 degrees of architecture below

And then all of a sudden, he's flying. Well, gliding. Arkham City uses a flight and momentum-based model to good effect. With his cape streaming behind him, Batman gains velocity by plunging down, before swooping up and soaring on updrafts. We're told it's entirely interactive, and to prove the point our demonstrator grapple-boosts - hurling a grapple into a building above, and using the leverage to fling Batman higher. This technique can enable players to traverse the entire city, we're told - and if you happen to end up in a dangerous region populated by bad guys wielding automatic weapons, well, that's the peril that comes with navigational freedom.

There's more to getting around the great outdoors than being a human hang-glider however. Batman has an array of points he can cling to, leap off or fire tightropes to. Street signs, building facades, even a handy helicopter are all viable vantage points. All are entry points for your next bout of acrobatics.

WHILE WE'RE OUT

The other star here is Arkham City. People concerned about whether the outdoor setting could match Rocksteady's proven chops at making indoor levels have no cause for alarm. The building's facades and streets ooze criminal character - just as well given the majority of the action will take place there. This isn't just throwing a skybox over a bunch of buildings, this is a city equally loaded with lights and the light-fingered - and it works every bit as well from ground level as it does from the air.

We're given a good sample of Arkham City's inside/outside game in our demonstration. Batman needs to get hold of Catwoman, who herself has been captured by Two Face - the sympathetic comic-book villain showcased in The Dark Knight.

Each faction in Arkham City not only has its own turf and territory, the underlings and the architecture reflects the visual motif of their leaders. In the case of Two Face, the exterior of the court building he occupies is half pristine, half in ruin. His henchmen affect a similar split personality look to boot.

Batman reconnoiters the building from a distance, and the game interface helpfully gives a rough threat assessment of the bad guys guarding the building, pinpointing the armed over the unarmed. After dispatching the guards, Batman enters the building and the detail level is every bit as high from out on the street. You're in a proper building, not just a few polygonally-challenged spaces. We see rich textures, realistic lighting and all the eye candy from the first game. A later visit the lair of another villain displays the same level of commitment to detail.

The investigatory model within Arkham City is streamlined, but in such a way that enables the game to tell a good yarn. When Batman "rescues" Catwoman from Two Face, he also foils a more sinister sniper assassination attempt.

We quickly get stepped through the basics of investigation, Arkham City-style. First Batman locates the bullet impacts on the wall and floor, and in doing so calculates the bullet's trajectory and origin. Once you note the two points, the game emits an idiot-proof brightly coloured beam of light depicting the bullet path. From there it's an easy task to exit the building and locate the one the shot was fired from.

Getting into building and accessing the point the shots came from is less easy. Batman is quickly pinned down by a gang of hostiles, before some amusing byplay gives him an opportunity to elude capture and bang some heads.
 
In doing so, we're treated to some new takedown moves available to the Dark Knight, including an inverted overhead takedown, and the ability to ram your fist through a wall and throttle a bad guy on the other side.

Use of detective vision - the special visual support mode from Arkham Asylum - is likely to be toned down, although Rocksteady haven't confirmed exactly how. Over-reliance on any tool in Batman's arsenal is something the developer wishes to avoid, partially because the game isn't meant to be played constantly in a graphic filter, and partially because it's easier to tell a gripping, immersive story if players aren't able to cut to the chase by flicking the "clue switch".

Street fighting years
Combat in Arkham City is unchanged in philosophy from Arkham Asylum. Again it's more about timing button presses and moving sensibly than it is about complex combos. Batman will often fight multiple targets - and at times have to avoid hurting a given target in the fray too much - here the game's analysis of threats helps as well. As time goes on, we're promised Batman will unlock new moves which will help him deal with more sophisticated enemies.
 
Prop-based combat also gets some attention. Batman can now use plastic explosives not as a way of merely blowing open a hole in a wall, but by attaching it to bad guys or the ground where they will walk onto it.

We've also been shown a remote control bat-a-rang with some interesting play potential. Players can fire off the projectile then guide it midair. It's meant to be tricky and a little fiddly, but the idea is more intended for use on puzzles in-game than taking out distant bad guys. Like detective vision, we wouldn't be surprised if there were limitations applied to its use.

Balancing out any restrictions is the fact Batman's gadget arsenal has been amplified in scope and power, much like his fighting move set and counters.

Much of the old rogues gallery from the first game will also make a comeback, including The Joker and Harley Quinn. Also confirmed to date is Hugo Strange - charged by Gotham's new major Quincy Sharp to run Arkham City - and Calendar Man, whose presence is hinted at courtesy of a spooky phone call.

Same Bat-channel?
Arkham City has no release date yet - the game is listed as "Fall 2011" (or Spring in New Zealand) by the publisher, while US retailers are currently pointing to October. The fact Rocksteady have not been unleashing punters onto the game in hands-on form could merely be them hedging for this year's E3 show, or it could suggest the game is still a fair way from completion. Either option is possible.
 
What we've seen ("seen" being the operative word) is unfailingly impressive. It takes some brass to take the high road and turn down what was very likely easy money to regurgitate new content in an old edifice, but that's the path Rocksteady took when they opted to take Arkham out of the complex setting and into its own city.

The combination of the acclaimed combat model of the first game with outdoor action and the retention of gorgeously modelled interiors is a pretty heady one for gamers accustomed to getting one or the other.

We're interested to see how opening of the game world up works with Rocksteady's determination to keep the narrative flowing. "Our objective is to tell a really tight story," Ginn reminded us. How you combine "navigational freedom" with that goal is something we're sure has given developers plenty of sleepless nights.

A definitive answer is likely months away, but for now, at face value the gamble looks on track, if not on rails