Rocksteady Studios' 2015 game Batman: Arkham Knight began as so many stories about the Caped Crusader have in the past, with a villain claiming that this would be the night the hero died. Unlike most Batman stories, Rocksteady kept their promise. After killing off the Joker during the finale of Batman: Arkham City, they ended their third and final superhero game with the world discovering what players knew all along: that Bruce Wayne is (and always will be) The Batman.
Despite this bold narrative choice, Batman: Arkham Knight left a bitter aftertaste in the mouths of critics. The advanced graphics and ambitious gameplay mechanics aside, many thought the game had packed too much into too little a package. The game may have ended up selling more copies than Batman: Arkham City and Batman: Arkham Asylum, but its influence on the gaming community was nowhere near that of either of its predecessors.
This is just one of the reasons why Rocksteady's next video game will not be a sequel to Batman: Arkham Knight, or much of an Arkham game at all for that matter. The studio has now been long-rumored to be working on a Suicide Squad title, and recently Rocksteady employees confirmed these Suicide Squad rumors, and even uploaded a tweet teasing when the fruits of their labor can be expected. The swapping of source material comes as a fresh change of pace for the company, which may have been exactly the point.
Why Won't Rocksteady Continue The Arkham Franchise?
The Rocksteady team has never been afraid of taking risks. When it acquired the rights to develop a Batman game in the late 2000s, it was at a time when no one had produced a decent Batman, or any superhero (besides Spider-Man) game in years. While the genre was fairly popular with younger audiences, no developer had yet managed to create a critically (and, more importantly, commercially) successful superhero game for older audiences, complete with an atmosphere that felt genuinely dark and threatening.
Despite lacking both experience and historical precedents, Rocksteady succeeded. Almost a decade later, and Batman: Arkham Asylum is still recognized as one of the most competent adult-oriented superhero games ever made. Having found a formula that worked for them, they stuck with it. With each subsequent title, they increased scale and scope by introducing new characters and gameplay mechanics — but at the cost of that original, opressive atmosphere.
Suicide Squad, in other words, presents a chance for Rocksteady to start anew. With a completely different cast of characters, none of which possesses the same skills as Batman and his fellow vigilantes, the developers will have to rebuild a new gameplay system from scratch. Moving on to a radically different project rather than expanding on Batman: Arkham Knight with interesting yet insignificant upgrades will allow the studio to recapture the spirit that helped launch them to the forefront of the industry all those years ago.