In the latest Rocksteady release Batman: Arkham Knight, Bruce Wayne has a new suit and it looks unreal! GameInformer spoke with the creative team who designed the new Batsuit to get an insight into its creation.
In the Arkham Knight, Batman doesn’t just kick off a new adventure in the new suit. The new creation is a result of the introduction of the Batmobile. We can see how he viciously enters and exits the car and with that comes a more secure, solid suit. The design team made sure that both the new Batsuit and the car where compatible with each other in both their design, structures, and its functionality.
Art Directors David Hego says, “You put them next to each other, and you can see that they’re coming from the same family”.
“You get the same elements on Batman’s suit, you have the same shapes, you have different metal shaders between carbon fiber and the brushed metal shininess. That’s the visual story. The story behind it is that Batman has this new car, and he’s doing all this crazy s— with it, and he needs to eject at mach 3 out of it.”
Lead character artist Albert Feliu talks about the catch 22 situation with both the great technological opportunities and challenges that new tech brings with the next generation consoles. “I remember having a meeting with David a year and a half ago, and we were talking about what we could do to make Batman’s suit really special. The Batmobile was there, and we started talking. We wanted to do something that was awesome – it was going to look amazing in terms of shaders and new techniques, but it needs to look different. We couldn’t go the same way. We had to diverge in a new direction, where people would notice that this is a next-gen Arkham. That was our goal – all the materials, all the leathers, and everything that kind of went with that. It takes five or six times more time to make Batman than any other character, so it was heavy and it was hard work, but I thought it paid off in a way.”
Studio head Jamie Walker says they have gone beyond just creating a bat suit that cosmeticly looks good, “He can move in it. That’s very important to us to have an authentic feel. Parts of it that haven’t ever been before are now articulated as well, so they all move in a different way.”
If your strength is “attention to detail” you would have noticed there is a change to the Dark Knight’s cape in the trailer, its had an upgrade and gives him the ability to glide more effectively which supports the game play. “The cape still covers the shoulders, but now he has the armour on top,” Feliu says. “If you imagine, if you were gliding down like Batman, down a city, to support that amount of muscle and weight, it makes more sense that it was attached to the cowl. What we did was build this armor thing, and one of the purposes of it was to hold the cape in place when it’s gliding around and all this ridiculous force to keep Batman and the cape attached. The cape is actually still there, it’s just that it’s covered.”
Hego also goes on to mention, “It’s maybe a little more realistic and a little less theatrical than what we had before,” Hego adds. “It makes a little more sense of how it would work if someone were crazy enough to do it. There are maybe a few more questions answered with the tech and how it could work together than we did before.”
Stay tuned in with Dark Knight News for more upcoming news regarding Batman: Arkham Knight
Source: GameInformer
