00:04Hi guys, welcome back to Gamescom. I'm joined today by Gaz, who's the Social Marketing Manager at Rocksteady. Nice to
00:09meet you, Gaz. How are you?
00:10Yeah, great.
00:11I've just had my first hands-on with Batman Arkham Knight, perhaps unsurprisingly, it was brilliant.
00:17One of the first things I noticed was there's a lot more combat options this time.
00:21I found myself instantly surrounded by quite a few guys, but I had loads more options than I did before
00:26of taking them out, even guys with guns.
00:29So in Batman Arkham Knight, you're going to be fighting much larger groups of thugs than you have done in
00:34previous games.
00:35They're going to be using a whole new moveset. Batman has upgraded his own abilities to deal with those.
00:39We've added environmental takedowns, so you're going to be able to use the environment, the way that the areas are
00:44laid out,
00:45to get one-hit KOs on guards by slamming them into fuse boxes, dropping lights on their heads.
00:51We wanted to expand the way that you play, the way that you deal with combat in Batman Arkham Knight,
00:57and using the environment in those ways is something that feels really natural. It feels totally Batman.
01:01And it felt amazing that I took down about five, obviously not killed, takes them down.
01:08Batman never kills anyone.
01:09Never kills anyone. Take down about five enemies, and not one takedown was the same.
01:13Like, one was an uppercut, one was the light.
01:15I did the environmental takedown with the light and smashed his head into an electronical device on the wall.
01:20Just the variety of it, and the way they all kind of weave together into combos, it just felt incredible.
01:26We've got a team of really, really talented animators, a lot of whom have been working on the Arkham games,
01:31really since we started on Batman Arkham Asylum.
01:34So, Zafar Kobin is our lead animator.
01:36He's been working with his team, and he's always got ideas for expanding.
01:39There's a lot of martial artists on our animation team as well,
01:41and I think that really reflects in the way that Batman uses a wide variety of techniques to deal with
01:47thugs.
01:49And also, one of the main new additions is the Batmobile, of course.
01:52We'll get on to the actual driving it in a sec, but it was also used in combat quite a
01:56lot.
01:56The way you could quite effortlessly switch between having Batman, remote controlling the Batmobile,
02:01quickly leaping into the Batmobile, and using it also to assist in takedowns.
02:05We really want the relationship between Batman and the Batmobile to feel like this sort of synergy of man and
02:11machine.
02:11They work really, really well together.
02:13The Batmobile is Batman's most powerful, most expansive gadget.
02:16It can do all kinds of things, enhances abilities in all kinds of ways.
02:19For example, you saw the Batmobile-assisted takedown.
02:22Batman uppercuts a thug, and the Batmobile shoots them out of the air with the Riot Suppressor, knocking them out
02:27cold.
02:27It's a really nice way for those two things to work together, and it opens up a load of new
02:32gameplay options.
02:33And some people were asking how the Batmobile manages to shoot enemies but not kill them.
02:38Can you explain the Riot Suppressor for people?
02:40So the non-lethal Riot Suppressor is a mode that switches in.
02:43As soon as Batman targets, as soon as the Batmobile targets a human, a living being,
02:48it switches automatically to the non-lethal Riot Suppressor, which effectively fires rubber bullets to knock enemies out,
02:54because Batman never kills anyone.
02:56Absolutely. And it's not just for combat either, the Batmobile.
02:58There were quite a few environmental puzzles that involved it as well, like pulling walls down, making ramps.
03:05Can you just tell us how much of the game is going to be Batman and the Batmobile solving puzzles
03:09and progressing through the environment together?
03:12Well, it's whatever feels natural for the progression of the story, like the way that Batman and the Batmobile work
03:17together,
03:17it really expanded out.
03:19Once we realized that we wanted to have the Batmobile in, we started thinking about what can the Batmobile do,
03:23how does it behave, how fast is it, what are its abilities?
03:25That opened up not only the exploration in pursuit mode, the combat in battle mode,
03:31the assistance that we've already talked about in Free Flow Combat with the takedowns,
03:34but also environmental manipulation, problem solving, puzzles, using the remote control to open up areas for Batman
03:40and then Batman opening up areas for the Batmobile.
03:42It all feels totally organic and it feels like an extension of Batman as the world's greatest detective,
03:48using his gadgets, using his abilities, using his intellect to solve problems and ultimately to take down Scarecrow.
03:55And one of the satisfying things about the Arkham games has always been that sense of traversal,
04:00just outside of combat, getting around the world, gliding around it, just taking in the detail that's been packed into
04:05it.
04:06And obviously before it was designed around Batman gliding through it,
04:09now you've got an open world Gotham that I guess has got to be designed not just for that,
04:13but also designed for the Batmobile to get around.
04:15I guess are we going to see open world sections where you can find little secrets that you have to
04:20use the Batmobile to get to,
04:21as well as gliding there?
04:23There's got to be all kinds of secrets scattered throughout Gotham City,
04:27so I'm not going to spoil any of the surprises on that.
04:30But absolutely, the city has been designed for it to feel totally natural for you to explore Gotham City
04:35in whatever way you choose to, whether you prefer to hit the streets,
04:39tear through them with the afterburner in the Batmobile,
04:42whether you choose to use that to then eject out and glide over the skyline,
04:46taking in the atmosphere, looking down on this living, breathing Gotham City that our environment team has created.
04:52And also, I mentioned before, they're often packed with little nods to DC lore that hardcore DC fans can poke
05:00around and find.
05:01I guess that must be quite a challenge.
05:02You're building a fully open world Gotham City, which is much bigger than Arkham City,
05:06it's much bigger than any world you've created before.
05:09How challenging is it to increase the size but not decrease the amount of detail that you put into it?
05:14We absolutely love putting little details in it. It's not a difficult job at all.
05:19It's one of our favourite things about building these games, leaving these little details in there
05:23that not everyone is going to notice, but we know that the guys who do notice and do get it,
05:26they're going to absolutely love. So it's not a difficult job at all. It's maybe the best part of the
05:30job.
05:31Fantastic. And we saw the Arkham Knight there. We still don't know who he is.
05:35We mentioned also the scarecrows in the game.
05:37Are we going to see an impressive roster of villains again for Arkham Knight?
05:40One of the best things about working with Batman, working in Gotham City, is the rogues gallery.
05:45All reflecting different parts of Batman's personalities, challenging him in different ways,
05:50taking advantage of his weaknesses, requiring him to behave and to think and to act in a certain way.
05:56So narratively, it's always been enormous fun working with the cast of characters.
06:01We've already announced Scarecrow, who's the principal villain, the puppet master of the story of Batman Arkham Knight.
06:06The Arkham Knight himself, who's working with Scarecrow, bringing in his militia to occupy Gotham.
06:12We've also got Two-Face, Harley Quinn, Penguin, all with their own agendas,
06:17but unified with the goal of taking down Batman.
06:21And just to wrap up then, this is the first time we've seen Batman on PS4.
06:24One of the things that I kind of love weirdly is the little reflecty bits on his cape.
06:28I love the way the water droplets shine off it.
06:30Obviously, the visual fidelity has increased massively.
06:32But what else has the PS4 allowed you to do, besides the visual upgrade, that you just couldn't do on
06:39PS3?
06:40Well, the size of Gotham City, really, making the jump to next-gen, has been an enormous advantage for our
06:46design team.
06:47Because they can go to the engine team and they say,
06:49Can I do partially destructible buildings?
06:52Can I drive upstairs and smash through concrete?
06:54And they're like, Yeah, yeah, you can do that with this.
06:56It would have been very difficult to make the kind of experience that we've made on any previous-generation consoles.
07:02And would it be fair to say that this is kind of the Batman game that you've always kind of
07:06wanted to make?
07:07Fully open-world Gotham City with a Batmobile in it.
07:10You know, it's kind of like what you've been building up to.
07:12It seems like the culmination of a, you know, we've had Arkham Asylum, it was tight, and it was focused.
07:17Arkham City kind of expanded on it.
07:18This seems like the Batman fans' dream of a Batman game.
07:22Well, I think in Batman Arkham Asylum, we created the experience of being the world's greatest detective.
07:26You know, we introduced detective mode and put players really inside the head of the Dark Knight for the first
07:31time.
07:32We then gave them the cape and the cowl, which was in Batman Arkham City,
07:37allowing you to glide the grapple and glide mechanics that really opened out that sort of, that gliding Batman experience.
07:43We're finally giving gamers the keys to the Batmobile.
07:46So it's really great to be able to drive this iconic vehicle and to show the world,
07:51to show gamers what our vision of a fully expansive Gotham with the Batmobile
07:56and to create that ultimate Dark Knight experience.
07:58Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for talking to me, Gaz.
08:00The game is looking and playing brilliantly.
08:04Don't forget to stay tuned to YouTube because we've got absolutely loads more videos coming up from Gamescom all through
08:08the week.
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