Rumored Batman: Arkham City Details Swoop From the Shadows

Apparent details of the Caped Crusader’s latest face-breaking adventure have surfaced on the internet.

If you missed last year’s Batman: Arkham Asylum, then you are a poor, deprived soul because the game was absolutely superb. It’s little wonder, then, that more than a few people are looking forward to returning to Gotham in the upcoming Arkham City.

Aptly-named fan site Arkham City has a list of details from Batman’s latest outing that it claims are straight from the pages of the latest Game Informer. While all of the information seems to fall in line with what we already know about the game, standard rumor caveats apply – take it with a grain of salt for the time being.

Given that Arkham Asylum is about as effective at imprisoning supervillains as tissue paper is at imprisoning hot water, we’re told that Quincy Sharp – running for mayor of Gotham – finally decides to shut the damn place down. He buys a huge swath of the Gotham City slums, ships in inmates from Arkham and Black Gate Prison, and walls the entire place off to create Arkham City. Naturally, nobody in Gotham sees any potential problem in bringing superpowered evildoers into the heart of the city itself, because with the exception of the Dark Knight they’re all a bit bonkers.

Inside Arkham City, Two-Face intends to have Catwoman killed to raise his esteem in the eyes of the inmates – and somehow, Batman gets dragged into the whole thing once again. Good thing, or else there wouldn’t be much of a game.

According to the report, Batman will not be falling prey to the dreaded Mega Man Sequel Syndrome, and will have all of the tools and gadgets he had at the end of the first game available from the start of this one. This means that Batman will be getting even more Bat-Upgrades, though only one is mentioned by name – his trusty smoke bomb. The Caped Crusader is now capable of countering two attacks at once, which will be very handy against the gangs of hoodlums roaming the wild streets of Arkham City. The game will be more puzzle-heavy than the last, and the Riddler will be returning with his Riddler Challenges to make you walk around the city manually inspecting every last inch.

If all of this is true, then consider my interest in Arkham City officially piqued (more than it was already, I mean). We’ll know if these details are the real deal for sure once the latest issue of Game Informer hits shelves.

(VG247)