Spring-Loaded
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Going by Rocksteady's releases, their chief goal was to realize physical aspects of Batman's character in a video game setting. Stuff like fighting, traversal, gadget use and everything in between. Pick a Batman action you've seen in any media that you thought was cool the remote controlled batarang in Batman Returns, snatching up a criminal while hanging upside down above them in Batman Begins, leaping into the Batmobile in The Animated Series and it's almost certain to appear in these games in playable form.
Each of their titles (including WB Games Montreal's Arkham Origins) added to/refined those elements and their overworlds served to support them. Asylum funneled players from enemy encounter to enemy encounter where each was set up to showcase the Batman abilities (1 vs. many combat, predator gameplay) available for the player. City featured a hub world that made use of traversal mechanics such as gliding and grapnel use, expanding on existing systems and overlapping them (e.g. gadgets normally used in puzzles of stealth segments could be used in the middle of combat, gadget use such as smoke bombs or weapon disabling could make fighting in a stealth segment feasible, etc.).
With Knight, Rocksteady created a full Gotham City to be traversed by gliding and driving the Batmobile, again serving the featured gameplay systems. However, just like in past games, adopted a setup that justified not having civilians and bystanders around in order to accomplish what they were going for a true, populated, metropolitan city would be too intensive and in some ways limiting for what they were trying to do, the same thing Rocksteady did with their past titles: have what's essentially a playground designed for the Batman actions they transferred from other media into their games.
We're all spoiled by the GTA series when it comes to what Rockstar brings to its open worlds, namely detail, population and, more recently, physics in that most everything in those games reacts appropriately to player actions. Those games are tremendously expensive (with GTAV being the most expensive video game ever made).
Would a future Batman game be well-served having a full Gotham City, civilians and all? Would it be worth the cost to realize that satisfactorily, and how best could the city be realized? There are a few things to consider when pondering these questions:
Traversal
There's a lot to consider, assuming a future Batman title has a full Gotham City, and if it's ever accomplished, it'll have been a tremendous undertaking. in meantime, I hope some helpful answers come out of this discussion.
Each of their titles (including WB Games Montreal's Arkham Origins) added to/refined those elements and their overworlds served to support them. Asylum funneled players from enemy encounter to enemy encounter where each was set up to showcase the Batman abilities (1 vs. many combat, predator gameplay) available for the player. City featured a hub world that made use of traversal mechanics such as gliding and grapnel use, expanding on existing systems and overlapping them (e.g. gadgets normally used in puzzles of stealth segments could be used in the middle of combat, gadget use such as smoke bombs or weapon disabling could make fighting in a stealth segment feasible, etc.).
With Knight, Rocksteady created a full Gotham City to be traversed by gliding and driving the Batmobile, again serving the featured gameplay systems. However, just like in past games, adopted a setup that justified not having civilians and bystanders around in order to accomplish what they were going for a true, populated, metropolitan city would be too intensive and in some ways limiting for what they were trying to do, the same thing Rocksteady did with their past titles: have what's essentially a playground designed for the Batman actions they transferred from other media into their games.
We're all spoiled by the GTA series when it comes to what Rockstar brings to its open worlds, namely detail, population and, more recently, physics in that most everything in those games reacts appropriately to player actions. Those games are tremendously expensive (with GTAV being the most expensive video game ever made).
Would a future Batman game be well-served having a full Gotham City, civilians and all? Would it be worth the cost to realize that satisfactorily, and how best could the city be realized? There are a few things to consider when pondering these questions:
Traversal
- Availability of vehicles, freedom of their use, whether/how their use is relegated to certain situations or areas
- Whether the player is able to land on the streets below
- What places the player can enter
- How populated the city is (evenings foot traffic or middle of the night foot traffic)
- How people react the player ("Batman is a myth" phase, or everyone knows he's real yet are afraid, etc.), whether they flee from the player or come ask for help
- In what ways the player can interact with civilians (i.e. knock them out of the way, startle them)
- Can they be hurt at all? Through player actions?
- Will perception of player character change depending on player actions over time?
- Whether car chases (scripted or random) can be participated in or interacted with in some way; if no vehicles, can the player catch up to or stop the fleeing vehicles somehow?
- Can criminals threaten/hurt/kill civilians out in the open world? What consequences would there be?
- Can civilians vehicles be targeted by criminals?
- Existence of destructible environments
- Number of interiors that are unique and useful to the player
- Time of day/weather
- Traffic, amount of traffic, whether it can be interacted with (e.g. if Batmobile is available, whether traffic will move out of the way/vanish/spawn minimally)
- Chases (on foot or in vehicles)? Fires? Robberies? Murders?
- If these exist, whether there are consequences to ignoring them
- How to accomplish when crashing enemy vehicles?
- Other unscripted actions scenes with civilians
There's a lot to consider, assuming a future Batman title has a full Gotham City, and if it's ever accomplished, it'll have been a tremendous undertaking. in meantime, I hope some helpful answers come out of this discussion.