Within minutes of landing at New York Comic Con, I got a chance to sit in on a panel showcasing the highly anticipated Batman: Arkham City. The panel consisted of game director Sefton Hill, audio director Nick Arundel, voice actor Kevin Conroy and Claudio Sanchez from Coheed and Cambria, who along with being a big fan of the franchise and a comic book writer, also contributed  to the game’s soundtrack.

When asked about working on a superhero game that had the challenge of overcoming the stereotype that superhero games suck, Sefton talked about wanting to create an authentic Batman game and how the team works in an isolated bubble for a two year period. The team consisted of approximately 100 people which is relatively small for a triple A title such as this. With the game’s focus being expanded from Arkham Asylum to the entire city, the game is 5 times the size of the previous game and is about 30 hours in length. The team was driven and challenged to devote the same level of care to the design of the game that was in Arkham Asylum while at the same time expanding it to encompass the entire city.

Paul Dini, who has worked on numerous DC comics and animated films, worked on the story for the game. Since Batman is the world greatest detective, the first thing to do is start with a mystery for him to solve. With that in place, they can then choose from the rich gallery of villains and work them into the story being careful that they serve a purpose and aren’t being added in for the sake of being added. One new addition to the game is a scanner which allows Batman to overhear chatter throughout the city. The challenge in adding this functionality was to help propel the story along naturally and give the player more insight.

Gameplay

It was then time to demo some live game play! I was pleasantly surprised to see that Gotham City was not dark and gloomy but instead full of vibrant color. The game looks absolutely gorgeous and has seen some improvement over Arkham Asylum. The animations and movement are more fluid and sophisticated whether in combat or when navigating through the city. The combat system is fairly similar to the last game but getting to your gadgets has been refined. The gadgets are laid out more as a rectangle and seem to be easier to navigate through rather than the previous circular menu. In order to get around the rooftops of the city you can use a combination of gliding and your grappling hook. One new gadget is a device that produces an magnetic field. In the game play demo, they showed a crane being magnetically manipulated to bash through a wall and create an opening.

Here’s a peek at some of that game play footage. Special Thanks to The Breaking Point Show for hooking us up. This was certainly one of the show’s hi-lights for me and I’m really looking forward to getting my hands on this game. Batman: Arkham City is available today for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 with a Windows version to come on November 18.