Rocksteady's Paul Crocker Talks Batman: Arkham City

Lead Narrative Designer on Batman: Arkham City, Paul Crocker, had a very exciting week at Comic-Con International. He got the chance to see thousands of Batman fans watch new trailers and gameplay from the forthcoming sequel to Arkham Asylum in person. As if the anticipation wasn’t enough, this may have pushed it over the edge.

Developed once again by Rocksteady Studios, Batman: Arkham City continues the story from the first game while expanding it in both breadth and and depth. Newsarama took a few minutes to speak with Crocker in the DC booth at Comic-Con, where the viewings were taking place, about the expansive new arena for the Dark Knight to play in, new characters appearing in-game and where the team goes from here.

Developed once again by Rocksteady Studios, Batman: Arkham City continues the story from the first game while expanding it in both breadth and and depth. Newsarama took a few minutes to speak with Crocker in the DC booth at Comic-Con, where the viewings were taking place, about the expansive new arena for the Dark Knight to play in, new characters appearing in-game and where the team goes from here.

Nrama: Tell us a little bit about Catwoman. She’s a playable character, but how much is she going to get to do, what is she going to get to do?

Crocker: She’s got her own campaign throughout the game, and the great thing about Catwoman’s story is it weaves in and out of Batman’s so at the point you’re playing her, it has a meaningful effect on what you’re doing as Batman as well. It was a very early decision. Catwoman was one of the first new characters we put in and then there was a crazy meeting where it was like, well why don’t we just make her playable? And everything evolved from there. It’s been in for ages, Catwoman, we love it. It’s a great extra character to compliment Batman, she’s very different than Batman. You know, she doesn’t have the same morals that he does and the two work very well together.

Nrama: There’s extra challenge maps in the sequel and we’ve heard that Robin is playable in them, can you tell us a little about that?

Crocker: Well again, with the challenge maps we know that they were really popular in the first game and people can perfect being Batman, they can be the best Batman they can be, they can learn all the movies. They get really good at the challenges; but we also know that with the last game the playable Joker was really exciting and we really wanted to put new stuff in.

So, everyone knows who Robin is. We wanted to, I guess, reinvent Robin so that he’s one bad-ass kid. So people don’t go, “Oh Robin, he’s no good to fight with.” We’ve made him...he fights in the coolest way we could do, he can beat the crap out of anyone. He’s got a full outfit, he’s not just a re-skinned version of Batman. Every time we had a character enter a challenge map or enter the game we think, “How can we make this character unique and as good as Batman?”

Nrama: And of course the main man himself, what have you done to change his characteristics?

Crocker: Well from a gameplay point of view we’ve just spent two years polishing everything. We’ve expanded his move set, we’ve expanded his fighting set and there’s many more animations in the combat. We’ve gone to town. Different takedowns, added new gadgets. You can now use the gadgets in the combat which expands the combat massively again. I think last night we showed the new Penguin trailer which had a massive chunk of Batman just snapping people apart, which at that point in the press conference we, as you can hear right now, people are shouting as they are getting the crap beat out of them by Batman. We really want you to feel like the most powerful Batman you can be and that’s what we did.

Nrama: Are you already looking towards a third?

Crocker: We’re looking to finish this one. Desperately looking to finish this one. But we will finish this one by October the 18th.