Okay buckle up because this gets long. Daniel Nye Griffiths, Contributor for Forbes posted a long story on Associate Producer Guillaume Voghel of Batman: Arkham Origins discussing the challenges on handling the franchise.
Voghel wants to make it clear that Arkham Origins is a continuation of Rocksteady’s work – an extension rather than a radical departure.
We were offered this franchise – we were absolutely honored and very humbled. Rocksteady has been great in giving us all the required technology. They handed over a great engine – a modified version of Unreal. Then we picked it up ourselves and started developing and reverse-engineering some of the things we needed to push the franchise forwards and evolve it, to develop an experience that people are going to find comfortable with the previous games. And then to take them further and give them more original pieces along with a completely new character arc.
In some ways, it is useful that Arkham Origins does not follow on from the ending of Arkham City, but instead turns the clock back to Bruce Wayne’s earlier days as Batman. However, it does raise the question of how many of the dark knight’s techno-toys have already been developed.
Gameplay comes first. Even if narratively or historically it would make sense for Batman not to have certain gadgets, we always put gameplay first. And gamers are going to appreciate that we didn’t try to reinvent the entire recipe. The combat is still very similar to Arkham City and Asylum; it’s had little tweaks here and there – some more enemies and some new stuff that adds another level.
The additions to Arkham City for the Wii U divided opinion somewhat, with complaints about impacts on the game’s challenge matched by praise for the use of the Gamepad to offer a persistent map and new twists on the game’s detective elements. However, an adaptation is quite different from a whole new game.
We have huge shoes to fill. When we received a build of Arkham City, before it was out, we thought “Oh my God. What did we get ourselves into?” Then you start thinking how you could change it – ‘what if we do this differently? What if we add a new villain?’ Eric Holmes, our creative director, really wanted to push that narrative arc [in Arkham Origins] where this was the first time Batman meets a lot of his arch enemies, and that allows us more freedom to develop relationships, and to explore where Batman came from. And not only Batman – where did the Joker come from, or the other villains? What was the Penguin like before he got to be this big guy with a criminal empire.
That really helped us to go in a different direction while maintaining the core of the franchise.
The story goes further down the rabbit hole as more topics come up. For a more in depth look into this head over to the source
What did you think abut this interview from what you have read so far? Are you happy with the new changes or are you upset with the direction they are going now? Let us know what you think in the comments section below, or on Facebook. Batman: Arkham Origins is now in stores.
Source- Forbes