When I first hopped online this morning, I was greeted with several new promo images for Batman: Arkham Knight. The gallery I checked out (seen in full on ComigSoon.net) had just about every existing image thrown in, so I'm not quite sure what was new or old. Either way, it is safe to say that this is going to be a great looking game, with an overall pitch-perfect atmosphere. The same was true of the Arkham series' previous installments and I'm greatly looking forward to revisiting Rocksteady's take on the world of Gotham.
The images of the Riddler have me curious about his exact role in the game however. Batman left him in quite the predicament in Arkham City, so it's a safe bet that he's going to have a substantial revenge plot in the works. If you need any convincing, this promo shot says it all:
I absolutely adored the Riddler side mission in Arkham Asylum. There was just enough there to satisfy without detracting too much from the main story. In Arkham City, the Riddler's presence was turned up to 11. The rooms where you rescue hostages from his elaborate traps made for some gripping experiences, as well as a solid test of how well you can apply Batman's various abilities and gadgets to quickly overcome new obstacles, but the requirements to get to them felt like a bit much at times.
As I've mentioned before, there were 400 Riddler Trophies to collect, and going after them became quite tedious. I didn't mind the puzzle solving required, but the whole concept was spread far too thin. Maybe this ventures into "damned if you do/damned if you don't" territory, where players would have felt cheated with less, but it's not as if the game was hurting in the side mission department. Even if halved, the amount of Riddler Trophies would have been ample.
It has been reported that Arkham Knight will take place in a portion of Gotham that is five-times the size of the previous game. If Riddler Trophies are returning, that's a whole lot of space to hide them in. I'd love to get the full Riddler experience a third time around, but after being left with a general "maybe I should have just focused on the main story" feeling from the last game, I'm concerned about the potential time-drain that might entail.
The team at Rocksteady have more than proven that they can put together a seriously kick-ass Batman experience, so I know they have it in them to give us something memorable as they close out their take on the Riddler. For now, I'll just have to remain cautiously optimistic that there ends up more to it than an even further amped-up game of collect-this and collect-that. I look forward to finding out for sure upon Arkham Knight's release on October 14, 2014.
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