Riddle me this: if a publisher shoots its game-reveal wad in front of a televised audience, does it dare change the name of the game revealed? Conventional marketing suggests that the answer is "no," but in the case of Batman: Arkham Asylum 2, the need of a name-flop seems downright dire -- and WB appears to get that.
A recent rash of WB URL registrations spotted by super sleuth super annuation suggests that the Batman follow-up is receiving the re-direction that it screams for considering that it's not even based in the place its name indicates. As you'll notice, most of these domains seem like decent subtitle material and, at worst, fodder meant to throw us off the trail. But there's arguably one prominent theme in all of this mess: a Gotham city in trouble. This idea, at least, jives with what little we saw during the game's Spike Video Games Award show reveal.
== TEASER ==The registrations:
- http://whois.domaintools.com/arkhamcity.com
- http://whois.domaintools.com/batmanarkhamcity.com
- http://whois.domaintools.com/batmanashesofgotham.com
- http://whois.domaintools.com/batmanbrokenground.com
- http://whois.domaintools.com/batmannewarkham.com
- http://whois.domaintools.com/batmangranddelusion.com
- http://whois.domaintools.com/batmanriseofarkham.com
- http://whois.domaintools.com/batmansiegeofgotham.com
- http://whois.domaintools.com/batmanstateofvillainy.com
- http://whois.domaintools.com/cityofarkham.com
- http://whois.domaintools.com/closearkhamcity.com
- http://whois.domaintools.com/peopleforgotham.com
- http://whois.domaintools.com/stopmayorsharp.com
- http://whois.domaintools.com/waringothamcity.com
- http://whois.domaintools.com/wheresbrucewayne.com
Ashes of Gotham strikes me as the forerunner. Even if it was a subtitle, it still gives the curious Wal-Mart fan the sense of the game's purported scale. State of Villainy wouldn't be too bad, either, I suppose, if the follow-up ends up being that a boss-monster heavy romp across a Gotham gone wild.
I should note that it's possible these aren't connected to the sequel, but the Quincy Sharp reference seems to indicate as much. Apparently, the warden of Arkham in Batman: Arkham Asylum was created specifically for use in the game(s). So, there you go.