Arkham Origins producer speaks out on living up to Rocksteady

When fans of the Batman Arkham series found out that the third game wouldn't be made by Rocksteady, there was definitely concern for the series. Many were worried that the next chapter wouldn't live up to expectations or that it wouldn't do the series justice; it wasn't just fans worrying though. Speaking to Eurogamer Senior Producer, Ben Mattes, revealed that Warner Bros Montreal almost felt reluctant to take on the franchise.

When Warner Bros first announced pre-orders for the game, comment sections were flooded with people demanding to see gameplay first or latching on to the fact that Rocksteady was no longer at the helm of the project. The need to surpass what Rocksteady had already given us may have actually helped the game by giving the developers the pressure they needed to make sure it was polished enough and ready for release.

Mattes explains: “You don't want to be the guys who messed up and ran into the ground one of the absolute, top-rated franchises of all time. You don't want that at the top of your CV. ‘Yeah, I'm the guy who turned a 96 into a 60, that's my claim to fame.' So I think there was an extra desire to create something really great as we were fully aware of the opportunity that we had.”

Over the months as more gameplay was shown, Mattes recalls fans showing more positivity and many people stopped pessimistically ignoring the game due to the lack of Rocksteady or original voice actors. Eventually it got to the point where fans were more comfortable with how the game was coming along.

“I think every subsequent piece of code we've shown has won over more and more of the public, to the point where it now stands out as an exception if we see someone who's still towing that line of: ‘It's not Rocksteady, it's not going to be good.' There's only, like, one in a 1000 it seems now still playing that card.”

Batman Arkham Origins came out today on PC, Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii U with slightly toned down Arkham Origins: Blackgate games arriving on the 3DS and PS Vita.

KitGuru Says: Facing all of the original fan skepticism must have been hard for the developers but now the game is finally out, people can finally start to share their thoughts on it. Are you playing Arkham Origins yet? What do you think so far? 

Become a Patron!