00:09The opportunity to work in the Batman universe is a real privilege.
00:13There's a huge level of expectation.
00:15You want to create something that stands up with all of this other great fiction
00:20and Batman lore that's been told over the years.
00:25It was such a great concept of Batman being victimized by all the characters.
00:31The potential for conflict was limitless.
00:34You will die.
00:37I think the stakes are much higher here.
00:40Joker has a lot less to lose.
00:42He was sick in the head before, but now his body is sick as well.
00:46I've just had a horrible thought.
00:49We could both actually die here tonight.
00:53The whole series is kind of like living in this crazy dark world
00:57where you don't really know who's really a good guy anyway.
01:00You must show you are willing to take a life.
01:02It's got a really fantastic gritty flavor to it.
01:06This game is totally badass.
01:11Writing a story for a game is completely different, I think,
01:14to writing a story for a film.
01:17We're regularly writing hourly crescendos in our story
01:20to keep people planned, to keep them interested,
01:22and then obviously the long-term story arc.
01:24You know, Batman's poisoned.
01:26What's going to happen?
01:27He's dying.
01:28Joker's dying.
01:28Where's this going?
01:29If you wanted to be cured so badly,
01:32you only had to ask.
01:35The great thing about Batman's robes gallery is that
01:38everyone's a bit different.
01:39Everyone's out for their own end,
01:40and all those things they're trying to achieve are slightly different.
01:43Bring out the defense!
01:46What got us excited is what if you have this huge district of Gotham
01:50and you put all of these supervillains into it.
01:52That was where the genesis of the story was.
01:55You will regret what you did, Mr. Cobblepot.
02:00To tell a classic complex Batman story in this huge open world we created
02:05is obviously a bit of a problem because, you know,
02:07we never know where the player's going to go.
02:08One of our solutions was to develop the surveillance system
02:11so that at any point you can listen into conversations
02:14that are happening live around you.
02:18There are lots of these kind of story elements
02:20that we are constantly drip-feeding you throughout the game.
02:23They're all talking about events that you have witnessed
02:26or seen or been part of.
02:27What the hell happened?
02:29Don't know. Gas leak?
02:31In a church rooftop? A gas leak? No way!
02:35We'll write a ton of stories around the main story
02:38because we want to make sure that everything's consistent.
02:41So we go in and we'll write a story about Penguin.
02:43How did he get there? What was he doing before he came to Arkham City?
02:46Where does he go after Arkham City?
02:48And we'll do that for every character.
02:56We always thought Penguin was going to be, you know,
02:59a hard character to put in our game, you know,
03:01because traditionally, you know, he's this little guy, monocle, top hat,
03:04which, you know, looks great drawn,
03:06but when we put him in 3D it just wouldn't have worked.
03:11Our very first conversation on Penguin was, you know,
03:14we should make him this kind of cockney gangster.
03:16And then I think I joked, we should shove a bottle in his eye for the monocle.
03:20And I don't know if it was Jim or someone from DC,
03:23it straight away went, that's awesome, let's do that.
03:25And, you know, it's that kind of relationship that really helps us
03:28take these characters and push them to new places.
03:30Are you going to be a good boy and give up nicely?
03:33You're not giving orders here anymore, Cobblepot.
03:38Anyone who's finished Arkham City will know that, you know,
03:41it doesn't end well for Harley Quinn,
03:43and, you know, she's now got a bit of an axe to grind with Batman.
03:46Surprise, B-Man!
03:48With the DLC, it's enabling us to tell the story of Harley Quinn's revenge,
03:52that follows shortly after the events of Arkham City.
03:55The player actually switches roles between Batman and Robin,
03:59the two kind of working cooperatively.
04:01You're late, Batman. Late, late, late.
04:05We spent so long working on the mechanics,
04:06working on how to tell stories, building the characters,
04:08you know, building this playground.
04:09We could almost be more ambitious and create a storyline
04:12that ties up loose ends and really makes sense in our universe.
04:25You're not compromised.
04:26Ah!
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