Good read, thanks Austin.

I looked SO HARD for a video like this and couldn't find one ANYWHERE. So thanks!

Great work!

Great article, Austin. You make a lot of good points.

I think one of the big issues with making open-world Batman games is that he doesn't have the flexibility or tone necessary for a game with civilian npcs. The heroes in Infamous are new characters with very little baggage attached. They don't have longstanding "I never kill" rules or almost a century of mythology behind them; they're historically unencumbered superheroes who can either avoid civilian casualties or actively court them without upsetting their audience. Their world atmospheres are built with that in mind. Since the developers don't know what kind of player you are going to be, things have to be ambiguous so that the tone and setting work for everyone (savior and fiend alike). Villains have to be of such questionable fiber that saviors have a reason for clemency and villains a reason for slaying. Civilians have to be nice enough that you don't mind helping them, but also just annoying enough that you can get over blasting them with lightning.

Batman has no ambiguity. That's not to say that he doesn't have moral conundrums or depth, but rather that he is etched in stone when it comes to his personality and audience expectations. He never kills. Oh, he'll maim and break your bones, but he won't kill you. He'll leave that to the doctors. *drum roll*

Sure, you can give him a tank. However, he'll only use non-lethal bean bag rounds on humans or human-driven vehicles (save the occasional boss tank battle) because he ... never kills. As Yahtzee joked about, strapping civilians to the enemy drones in Arkham Knight would have effectively defeated Batman unless he invented a "dislodge civilian with vitals relatively intact" tank attachment. The limitations on Batman are very severe due to the character's psychoses, which are often mirrored by his villains.

Speaking of which, you hit the nail on the head with your comments that Batman's rogue gallery reflect aspects of the hero taken to extremes. I think that's why I like them so much. Heck, that's probably why Batman Returns is one of my favorite films. Catwoman as the vigilante, Cobblepot as the orphaned heir, and Shreck as the billionaire (or multi-millionaire, back then) business tycoon with a dark secret. All three of them are parts of Batman, reflecting his inner turmoil as they feud among themselves and with him. It worked wonderfully in that film.

The villains in the Arkham series do the same thing, as good Batman villains should do. However, the dichotomy here is far more extreme than in Batman Returns. Since Batman is now an absolute paragon of rather brutal virtue (rather than the self-doubting, morally questionable Batman Returns character that even burns a few enemies to death), his reflections are equally extreme. Cobblepot / Penguin gouges out peoples eyes and then dumps them on highways to be run over as they stumble. An audio log details how Joker tore kindergartners apart, sewed their corpses together into patchwork meat-dolls, and then recorded himself singing a lullaby for the parents to listen to as they screamed in anguish and fought each other over pieces of their own children (probably shrieking things along the lines of "that's my kid's head on your daughter's body. Give me back my kid's head." Less lucid though). The Riddler tricks people into believing that they have brain cancer, and then implants bombs in their heads that will explode if Batman beats them up... which you wouldn't think would be that shrewd an idea until you see what Batman's social life is like.

There is no ambiguity like with the villains in Infamous or even Batman: The Animated Series; Batman's villains in this game franchise are just absolutely psychotic, yet often charismatic, monsters. Oh, the element of pathos is still there. There are numerous Wayne Foundation plaques in the Arkham Asylum game, because Batman recognizes how great these exceptional people could have been if they weren't criminally insane and funds their notably ineffectual rehabilitation center. Incidentally, Alfred probably has the same thoughts about "Master Wayne" each and every night Bruce dresses up as a bat and comes back home with a bullet-perforated cape. "What could have been..." and all that. The villains never become sane though, and Batman never stops being Batman. They're insane, and they'll do their dance with gusto because it's what they know.

That dance has a lot of collateral damage, especially with the ramped up extremes of the Arkham universe. So, you're left with some awkward problems. Batman can't kill, so him driving a batmobile in a civilian-peopled Gotham would be out of the question since psycho players would inevitably run over people and post youtube videos of it (and the "they just got electrocuted. Everything is cool, dude." defense only goes so far). You can't leave civilians on the street and get rid of the batmobile either, because the amped up versions of these Batman: The Animated Series villains and respective gangs aren't "staying in the shadows" during these games. No, they've emerged from the dark to wreak havoc and challenge the powers that be... and you'd have endless mini-massacres on your hand that would really vex a lot of DC execs and ESRB rating boards.

I suppose you could do a more subtle Batman game, where the villains are plotting heists and take-over schemes in the Gotham underground that the rest of Gotham barely knows about, save when it accidentally bubbles up to the surface. Then you'd have a thought provoking dichotomy between the sheltered parts of "privileged" Gotham, where some villains hide in plain sight and Batman is decried as a vulgar vigilante, and the hellholes where people like Joker openly rule with despotic glee and the only cops willing to patrol there are ones on someone's payroll. Yet, how pissed would players be if they were artificially constrained in the "nice parts" of town? A semi-linear tale like Arkham Asylum could alleviate that, but then people might complain about a perceived "scaling down" of the next entry. Oh, and then there's the matter of the constantly ramping up threats. Blackgate Joker lackeys to League of Assassins to Bane's mercenary legion to an entire paramilitary force... and now subtlety? I think not. :-P

I honestly would love a Arkham game that eschewed the giant open-world for a more semi-linear Asylum-esque experience (and had Paul Dini back as lead writer, because I love that man's work). Then you could have moments with civilians and life to contrast the grim misery of the Gotham underground, and the player potentially being a psychotic in a world of extreme psychotics really wouldn't be a problem... unless they hated storytelling and just wanted to drop down off balconies to punch trash-talking hooligans. Then we'd have an issue, hehe.

Edit addition: Oh, and my goodness. I can tell that I'm way too much of a Batman fan by how long this is. Eek! :-D

This is a great write up dude.

Great article. Love to see Morrison's Batman get credit too. Such a great run, that like so many DC/Warner things gave way to cynical doom and gloom.

I'd fucking love to play a Batman game that takes you to different areas across a lively Gotham, with a story that includes civilians, criminals, and a few villains as integral characters. Stuff closer to The Animated Series, which remains *the* Batman (and Gotham) as far as I'm concerned. A regular Batman story in Gotham, rather than something that feels more like the spectacles of Arkham City and Knight.

I'm good with what the Arkham games have been about though. The stories feel more relationship focused, touching on characters throughout Batman's history both good and bad (or somewhere in between). Joker, the al Ghuls, the Bat Family. They've always felt like games that were for people who already knew about Batman and his rogues gallery, but that those who weren't could still follow and enjoy.

But it's easy to scoff at the ever-expanding game environment and their contrived way to keep from having to reconcile a bustling city with a superhero who doesn't really run around with the public. There's a strange need to go bigger with sequels, rather than just be different.

Yeah, that's a thing that really bothered me about Defiance. A game I actually really liked by the way - prefer it a lot over Destiny. The Earth that game is set on has been terraformed by aliens, but it's clear from the audio logs you pick up, the dialogue in general and certainly from the TV show that there are several sprawling towns and even larger cities in the world (in the TV show, the actual town Defiance seems to have a few thousand residents at least, and up until the end of season 2, New York seems largely undamaged and appears to be densely populated), but for some reason every location you encounter in the game is pretty much devoid of life. You encounter civilians in peril on the roads, and occasionally see civilians hanging out around the fast travel points that we're told in game are villages and outposts, but for some reason have no place for people to live, I can only think of a single location that has shacks that it would look like people have taken refuge in, but even if they don't let us enter the buildings I just wish you could see more of that.

What the fuck is Austin ever talking about? This article was very long and I do not know what the argument was for or against. Can someone help me out here? Maybe I missed something?

Great read, especially enjoyed that last bit.

Great article, but geez some of the comments are like. You guys know about Batman, right? How he's a fictional character and all? Batman doesn't kill people because it's infinitely harder to get people (especially kids!) to connect with a guy who just murders his problems away. Dang.

As much as I would like to play a Batman game in a densely populated Gotham, beating down muggers and whatnot, I'm just not sure how it would work from a mechanical standpoint. Batman operates from the shadows, so being able to just swoop down onto a sidewalk filled with people would just seem odd. More importantly, having something like the Batmobile, which in Arkham Knight is capable of destroying just about everything in its path, would be even more difficult to work in. In AK it zaps thugs "safely" out of the way, but I'm not sure how normal citizens would react to it dangerously barreling around the corner.

Damn! Nice article, Austin.

I think why where left with such a deserted city is because where given the scenario of all the criminals have escaped the jail and are running a muck. In that situation yes people should be hiding or have left the city totally.

This scenario really came from Batman Begins.

A good idea to do next time would be to chapter it. Example each bad guy is a nights mystery finish mystery then call it a night. In these games you never have day time, it just doesn't exist. So time in general is gone. It's like a really long night were Batman never calls it quits. It's kinda dumb cause the amount of stuff that happens in these games would need more then one night to do. They simplified it to probably make it paced faster, but realistically it's wrong.

Still loved all 3 games and never let this bother me... But I haven't made it to 4 yet.

@austin_walker Do you watch Arrow? While it does have that filmed in Vancouver, Canada gleam, that fact that Starling City plays such a role in the series echoes your theme. Of course the producers there did something amazing, and let Oliver fail spectacularly.

Gotham being devoid of civilians for the third time running in this series was my biggest initial disappointment for this game. There were many more to follow, but it remains the most stagnant aspect of the series, and really tired narratively. Great piece Austin.

I agree with Austin's points, but boy it would be quite the challenge to make an open world game feel alive while also being a competent game. I guess that's why GTA is so popular because those can games do both at the same time. Anyway, I love the article Austin! :)

Excellent article Austin! This same thing has bugged me since AC as well. I still think AA is the best one by far, it was just so so damn tight. After games like Witcher 3 (to an extent, a lot of locations are so very static in nature, always the same routines) and well for me GTA4 and 5 and the way those worlds feel, I have a very difficult time caring about a lot of open world cities and locations esp when they are so devoid of life. There's a lot of games where there's a lot of inhabitants but they just aren't believable (like Just Cause 2) and it breaks the immersion so much, I didn't bother interacting with them much. I keep hoping for more devs that actually put some attention into their worlds and making it a living place first, before adding a game to it, and it's few and far between.

Fantastic article. Enjoyed your breakdown of fear and hope found in cities and how superheroes fill in the gaps. Still really need to read Starman.

I feel like every aspiring dev who wants to make an open world should read this. My respect for the inFAMOUS series just doubled.

I wonder if there will be civilians in MGSV.

I agree, civilians would be cool, but then Batman doesn't work as a game.

Spiderman 2 and the other games in the franchise like it had this system where there were civilians all throughout the city, and there were ambient crimes you could choose to help in or not. You can do that in Spiderman, because he's a little more ambiguous, sometimes a little morally misguided.

Not Batman.

Batman doesn't kill. He helps everyone in his immediate view no matter what, and has insane plot armor to make certain that he can. Batman does not work in a city where you may potentially be able stun civilians, much less simply ignore their pleas for help. Worse, stand high above them and watch as they are mugged or stabbed.

What's the solution? Make the enemies forever in a loop where they never hurt anyone? Make it so that the crime is always happening, and you can stop it once and for all, whenever you decide to get to it? Then the enemies never feel like a threat.

In a game world where you're already making concessions for Batman to use a giant tank by making unmanned drones, and making the Batmobile have some magic stun field that gently lifts thugs out of the way of Batmobile's certainly fatal treads, and where it also already seems like any of the things he is doing could be ultimately fatal, I don't think there's any room to give the player further freedom to fuck with civilians.

And so there are no enemies. And I would rather there be none, than have the game put up more strange arbitrary concessions or invisible walls to prevent me from mistreating civilians.

This would be a pointless article if you didn't go over the games that have the room to be more ambiguous with the protagonists treatment of civilians, like GTA, Infamous, etc. I don't think you should try to fit the Batman game into their mold. It's okay for games to be different, and you should play this game, or give it more of a chance, instead of brushing it off entirely simply because it isn't Superman Returns.

I would love a Superhero game that forces you strike a balance between your "normal" life and your hero life (Kind of like what Persona 4 does so well)

Also, has anyone else played Freedom Force? It's a real-time tactical superhero RPG that actually punishes you for hurting civilians. Unlike most RPGs, projectiles are directly attached to in-game objects, so a fireball that misses your intended target will keep flying until it hits something else (like a car, which will likely explode if hit) or reaches its max range and fizzles out, so you need to be careful when you take action. It's not too hard to make it through the whole game without hurting a single civilian, but it's a nice touch. (Also that game is really cool for a lot of other reason, especially if you're a fan of silly silver-age comics)

1) Rocksteady absolutely should have had more ambition by its third game, especially after the second was criticized for a lack of ambition

2) I think the developers deserve some credit for getting as much out of the story as they did despite its limitations

3) I think what you had to say about cities was way more insightful than what you had to say about cities in video games. No video game has ever captured what a real metropolis is like, because a metropolis is a constant reminder that there are so many things going on outside of you that are every bit as important as what you're doing, and that's basically the opposite of what a game is, right?

A city is a story that's too big to be told, and when we simulate it successfully in fiction, it's only by giving such a limited cross-section that we can't see the flaws. Player agency prevents that illusion from being made in games except through excessive scripting.

On target. So impressed. Thanks for digging so deeply into culture, into what is real and what is perception. I loved this!

That was a great read.

I've always thought that having the games take place over the course of a single night was a clever contrivance that allowed Rocksteady to make the kind of batman game that they wanted to make. But i was also hopeful that it would have allowed them to eventually give us a living, breathing Gotham. Unfortunately, that hasn't yet happened.

Love your write ups Austin!

Is Majora's Mask the best Batman game? Please respond.

But seriously, great article Austin. I hope someday I'm as good at something as you are at writing.

@austin_walker: No problem! The 8 or 9 different line reads just make it feel like the developer knows that no one wants to see the dumb zombie scene.

I got a copy of Infamous 2 that I never played, should get around to that.

@austin_walker: Man never realized how much I missed reading good videogame articles, loved what Patrick had to say too but I am so so so happy to have you on the team. Keep the write-ups, the interesting topics and the good work going!

I think Rocksteady can create a great sense of place - particularly Asylum and City. Both of these games really sold the idea of the different Rogues taking over a section of the Asylum/City. It was very comic-y, and creative.

What I would have liked Rocksteady to explore in Knight was a sense of time. To me the world seemed very static, it is always the same time of night. It's pretty much always raining. I'd love to see a story play out over time - across seasons like The Long Halloween or just over a long night that included sunset, midnight, sunrise - sort of like Bloodborne. I think playing with time like this would open up a lot of story possibilities too.

I think Bruce could throw a tonne of money at the cause if it meant he could finally marry Dick :P

Fantastic article.

I think the lack of life in the city is a major factor of why it feels less like an open world and more like some bonus thing tacked on between actual levels and encounters.

This is cool

Great piece of writing and I couldn't agree more with you Austin. I was really hoping for a living breathing vibrant Gotham this time around on the new consoles from Rocksteady but they just gave us Arkham City all over again. They make Gotham seem horrible and unliveable, making us wonder why anyone would live in a city constantly under attack by crazy supervillains.

I keep looking away at the horizon while sitting atop towers on the islands looking at the mainland Gotham city lights and thinking that that's where I want to explore, not these three deserted islands and it's such a major bummer. I keep trying to leave but the game doesn't let me, I feel trapped. I expect more from games these days so it's a dissapointment

As someone who thinks that Arkham City and especially Arkham Knight were almost hilariously overrated, I gave up some time ago on a populated city being in the cards. It's a good idea in theory, but with the way people seem to play games, any person who isn't a main character becomes either a collectible or a plot device and nothing more. While I did enjoy what Watch Dogs tried to do, it too became a victim of it's own ambition and pushed so many people into the world that they began to repeat far too soon. That's speaking in terms of both design and, most certainly, the voice work. A lot of the spoken dialogue overlapped for me in that game, often causing me to hear the same canned discussions about driving too fast or parking dangerously close to their precious curbs over and over again.

Though you already mentioned it @austin_walker, I also enjoyed what Witcher 3 did in creating a world that felt large and, more importantly, lived in. Even some of the missions in Novigrad went to unexpected places that really had me thinking. In fact, even over thirty or so hours in, the one that always stands out for me is the very short quest in which (actual side-quest spoilers below)...

It was a genuinely surprisingly thing to hear, especially from a character that you presumably never come across again...

My rambling aside, I do still hope that worlds become more fleshed out in the future. I know the tech is there and we really should be using it for more than making the rain on Batman's mask look realistic. Great article Austin, hope to see more from you soon!

Interesting article but ultimately I think it'd never work and what Rocksteady are doing with Batman is about the best we can do. Those other open world games that are filled with civilians don't use a character with 75 years of established, licensed history that they have to stick with. Nobody knows who Delsin Rowe is in Second Son so nobody cares if this street punk looking kid starts punching civilians or kicking puppies. Nobody really knows who Trevor is in GTA V, he's just a criminal hick.

The only way I think you get what you want is if you start to use Bruce Wayne more in the games. Bruce Wayne can be around civilians, he can be around during the day. Batman cant. The only time Batman can be around civilians is when it's inside a ballroom or a casino and the civilians all have places to hide behind. It's when it's one or two civilians are down an alleyway being mugged. It's not in Times Square. It's not when there's a chance of him hurting the innocent. So if Rocksteady or another developer pushed in that direction you're going to get pushed back from DC saying "No, Batman can't hit civilians and he can't run them over" which would then lead to massively immersion breaking moments where every civilian is a master of acrobatics who can dodge from Batman's punches and car with ease. I think it would be cool to see a game that uses Bruce Wayne a bit more, but that would require a longer and more segmented story which isn't what Rocksteady are telling. They're telling a story of a single night of being Batman.

I think it was the original Driver or maybe the Die Hard Collection that didn't let you run people over in the car. All the civilians could always gets out of the way of your car all the time. And it never felt right.

It's a great piece to read and I understand your desire of Gotham to be a more 'real' city, but personally I didn't miss any of the civilians on the streets.

You give the example of The Witcher 3 with characters inhabiting it's 'vibrant world', but to me those characters feel as much static as the houses they supposed to be living in. They all have the same move set, repeat their given line every time you walk by and you can't interact with them. They are so clearly part of a decor that it's not really adding much to the world. Of course people would walk around in a city, but that's all they do in that game; walk around, sometimes a few feet above the ground as well.

I'm just saying; adding people to a virtual town is just one step. When you have the people you want them to react as people, be diverse as real people are. You want to be able to ask them something, scare them or love them. Just adding the character models with limited animations barely postpones the realization it's not a real city and those people are not real inhabitants of it.

The Batman in Arkham Knight is not saving people, he's saving the city and of course his loved ones that are constantly in danger. It's a cheap trick for the series, but for me it's working.

Right. It's mostly a problem with it being an open world. Even going with Bruce Wayne being your face for exploring the open world has issues. Batman doesn't really wear his costume under his suit, and constantly using drop pods or convenient Batcave off-shoots is another silly contrivance. Go to levels or areas instead and the problem of Batman running around like an idiot in public or causing chaos in traffic can be constrained.

Of course there's always the thing where they just say fuck it and make it an fully active and open world, and if you go around trying to punch up crowds then that's on you. But if you wanna go all in with playing as Batman, you totally could, and it would probably be cool as fuck. That's how I'd go about it, and however the hell someone else decides to "break" that experience for themselves wouldn't be my problem. Should the developers just not give a fuck either? They can make it so you just can't harm civilians if they've got IP rules to abide by or something.

But then if they do that, wouldn't it still feel like there's that barrier between you and the game world? You'd still almost be operating in a different plane. Does having the ability to do horrible stuff in a game make it feel more alive? Make you feel more connected? Does it make it more rewarding to avoid those things? It definitely felt great to go through all of Watch Dogs without killing any civilians or cops. It also made it pretty strange to see criticisms about this so-called vigilante running down civilians. No, it was you running down civilians.

I think Austin's giving other games a little too much credit though. They're absolutely more lively than Arkham games (to the point where it's almost unfair to compare them; the Arkham games don't even remotely try to approximate normal Gotham city life), but they're all still quite mechanical when you really look at em; still obviously scripts and animations in a video game. I think it's more that they strike a good balance between approximating a city and being something he can suspend his disbelief of.

The Infamous games felt like big dumb playgrounds to me, whereas I'd walk the streets of Watch Dogs and get lost in Not Chicago and all its denizens. I've poked around in enough GTA games to be familiar with the seams, but the Witcher games consistently leave me awestruck with how incredibly well constructed and believable behaved the world is. I think a big part of it is how much you're willing to immerse yourself in the world. That can be the difference between a world that feels alive and a world that's just in motion.

I think this is why the first Bioshock game succeeded so well at being a compelling place to explore, despite it falling into the usual game setup of dropping you into a ruined environment after the shit has already hit the fan. You get to see what the city used to be. You get to see the promise of what it could have become.

There are countless stories in every corner, from the locations of bodies and bloodstains to the still-set dinner tables. Or the scene of luggage strewn throughout the bathysphere terminal. Or the craft that clearly went into each neon sign and plasmid poster.

By comparison Arkham City doesn't feel like a place. It feels like a construct.

I really enjoyed this piece. At first I didn't agree, but then I started thinking about it more, and I realized how much fun it would be to be Batman flying around Gotham while civilians were still there.

I was reminded of Spider-Man 2 for PS2. Before the Arkham series, that is the best superhero game, in my opinion, and seems to be the superhero game that @austin_walker wants to play. While I enjoyed the main story, I got my most enjoyment from that game from swinging around the open world as Spider-Man stopping crimes.

@austin_walker Fantastic article! I'm wondering if you ever played Arkham Origins as I felt it got the closest to humanizing it's criminal element. It's a bit difficult to notice initially, especially if someone goes through the game with an understandably disinterested attitude considering that origins may as well be the Gears of War Judgement/God of War Ascension of the Batman games, but the game treats the criminals as a step up from scum.

I seriously think people should experience it but that's a bit much to ask so I'll try and save everyone the ten hours or so and sum it up.

In the previous two Batman games you mostly saved civilians, good cops, and doctors from the clutches of enemies. Yet there's at least a moment per game when you can optionally rescue an enemy. In Asylum near the start of the game when your saving a couple Asylum employees there's an inmate similarly in distress. When you pull him up to safety it pops a trophy "Leave No Man Behind" but as shown in the video when the henchmen looks up at Batman he just gets punched in the face. It's brutal and strangely without anything to provoke it!

In Arkham City you can find a henchmen being dangled over a pit of lava that you can save. Yet once he's safely down he attacks you! Now it's defensive but your still saving someone only to knock them unconscious!

Yet in Arkham Origins the criminals are different. In an early predator encounter a member of the mob is being held captive by Penguin's gang, this is in itself part of the game's theme of old crime being overtaken by the new more eccentric ones like Penguin, there's a charming dialogue between Penguin's gang and the captive where they make fun of the saying "Sleeping with the fishes" and the captive is offended at the outdated stereotype. Then you swoop in as Batman and take everyone out but instead of the captive attacking you once free or Batman knocking him out for no reason you can talk to him. He tells you that further in Albert Falcon, son of the mob's boss, is being held captive and that he was his bodygaurd and that the mob would be in his debt if Batman saved him.

Even though Batman's a bit disgusted at the idea of the mob being in his debt and the fact that it's not entirely clear if Albert escaped, he probably did, it's such dramatic improvement from criminals only being used as punch fodder.

Later in the game when the Joker's invaded the plot and has taken over a hotel and filled it with attractions of the death trap variety who does Batman save? You'd imagine it would be the hotel guests right? There's a remark earlier outlining that that's the plan. Instead it's the criminals who built it.

You save them anyway.

It's clear that they could have put civilians there. Later in the hotel level there are plenty of civilian models to be used. Though none of them are put in Joker traps. The civilians are only threatened by the criminals on two occasions in the hotel level. There are two joker traps with henchmen that you have to save for progression.

At the end of the hotel level there's a big brawl, with Bane and a bunch of henchmen, on the roof and it seems like Batman is overwhelmed and out of worry for him Alfred wants to phone for the police. Batman is furious at the idea. The Batman here is young, brash, and prideful. He doesn't want to admit he's lost. Yet when the police arrive in choppers something noticeable happens.

They shoot guns and the henchmen die.

Then Bane fires a rocket at the police choppers and they die. This is one of the core elements, if not the core, of this character. It's this sense of control. In the face a civilians attacked by criminals who are in turn attacked by different criminals who are then killed by their own boss, in the face of corrupt Gotham PD stopping a hand to hand brawl by shooting first, there is this fantasy of putting a stop to it without causality. The scene in Dark Knight where Batman attacks the police to prevent them from killing innocent hostages unknowingly is similar.

You absolutely hit the nail on the head saying that superheroes are in many ways a sort of answer to all the ambiguous loose ends and cracks in the infrastructure of society that people worry about. I feel like Arkham Origins is the only game in the series to even bother addressing this element of the character.

In the game there's a character called Anarky who quotes from the actual book "Plain Words" on the radio and whose motivations seem misguided and naive but understandable. He rally's the homeless to work for him to plant bombs. When you meet each of the three supporters that initiate the bomb missions they act nice to you. Granted there are Anarky supporters at the bomb sites you have to beat up but considering they're defending a bomb that will kill them when it goes off it doesn't seem all that mean.

You actually meet the homeless that Anarky is recruiting during the police level being beaten upon by the corrupt cops. The way progression is laid out you have to save them.

The game even has the crime in progress system which causes random crimes to happen around the city. The important thing is that they're frequent enough and provide more experience then just diving into a bunch idle npc and randomly beating them up. It provides incentive to not swoop in and attack unless a crime is taking place. Someone might insult you but you'd think twice about engaging in vindictive revenge when more experience awaits when you actual stop a crime.

Man that's an overly long post...kinda got out of hand. Maybe I'm over analyzing everything although I did leave a bunch of stuff out. I still think people should give the game a chance as I think while it doesn't play super good, tip: prioritize the crying baby carriage side mission to make the gameplay way smoother, the story and it's execution addresses a lot of issues with the series story.

Sorry for the rambles. Really enjoyed the article.

LOL, three different lines of dialogue recorded and the door animation created to make an invisible wall feel more organic.

Love, love, love this article, @austin_walker.

P.S. -- Have you ever read Grant Morrison's Supergods? It's a semi-auto-biographical critical analysis of the rise, importance, pervasion, and fluid cultural iconography of modern superheros. It's an . . . interesting read (as the last third of the book dovetails away from that original premise to catalog Morrison's own Hunter S. Thompson-esque drug adventures).

Anyway, Morrison's critical perspective really aligns closely with the one established in this piece. And there's a really interesting conversation Morrison has about the presence American comics--specifically Superman--have internationally in the vacuum following World War II, when America made this sudden transition from scrappy independent underdog to nuclear superpower.

Morrison, who grew up in Scotland, describes his childhood fear of "The Bomb," which was really a childhood fear of the abstract and terrible power another country might hold over the world. And he talks about how, ironically, it was Superman--the ultimate American myth and the creation of two Jewish writers--who finally gave him the language to engage with that fear directly.

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I think you nailed this point, and Arkham's failings, so concisely. Crime doesn't exist just because it's crime, at least not on the whole. Crime is inspired by something, motivated by circumstances like poverty and desperation and fear and need and want. In Arkham Knight, when Scarecrow threatens a cataclysmic event that will devastate the playable gamespace, it's kind of not a point a tension at all, because the only people left roaming this gamespace are the looters and rioters and faceless thugs. It's a population of criminals defined only by their criminal actions. Arkham's Batman is a remorseless force of vengeance, which is true of comic Batman, like, sometimes. But he's an altruist when he can be. And Arkham's Batman is almost never that.

One of my favorite pages in The Long Halloween shows Batman leaving a Thanksgiving dinner for Solomon Grundy, with whom he'd had an inadvertent confrontation with earlier in the issue. Arkham Batman would've booked Grundy just for being a bad guy out in the open, even though, in this comic, Batman and the criminal he was chasing basically invaded Grundy's home. Instead, after Batman catches the guy he's after and brings him to GCPD, he takes enough time to make sure even the most lonely and estranged of criminals is the benefit of some measure of kindness.

That's the sort of thing that makes a superhero truly, well, super.

To echo @thephantomstranger in a far less eloquent way, Arkham Origins is the best Batman game. I'm not saying he's saying that, but what he described goes a long way in making Origins have the best story BY FAR out of any of the Batman games. Which makes it all the more frustrating when people completely dismiss the game simply because it wasn't made by RockSteady. @austin_walker, you really ought to play it. 1) Because it's just that damn good, and 2) because I would appreciate someone on staff having completed it if/when WB Montreal are tasked with taking on the Arkham franchise.

While I get Justin point of people being in Gotham, what would do with them if your are in the Batmobile or Bat-Tank, you literally will actually kill them and that is what Batman is against; he's no Superman.

Hopefully the Superman rumored game from WB Montreal gets made and we actually see some real human beings on the streets, even though is Metropolis.

hmm the reason Batman:AK is empty could be the tech, are there other open world games in UE3?

Watch Dogs had an interesting sistem with civilians with optinal crime stoping from cityOS.

Austin play AC this year that game even if the combat is not that good it will have civilians in the city

@austin_walker@historyinrust