With Rocksteady's Batman: Arkham trilogy having come to a close last year, it's easy to forget that games featuring the Dark Knight used to be some of the worst titles in the industry. In fact, Batman games were so consistently terrible that most gamers assumed working the Caped Crusader into a decent game was downright impossible.
To be fair, EA's attempt at a tie-in with Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins wasn't all bad. It wasn't a great game — Batman felt sluggish and heavy, and the entire game sported an awful brown filter — but it was a step in the right direction. Many assumed that, with a bit more time and polish, another game in the same vein could be something worth playing.
Yet, no follow-up ever materialized. Rumblings of a game based on The Dark Knight film started to spread, but nothing ever came of it. Even after Gary Oldman outed the game as in-development, EA refused to comment — and the game slowly faded into obscurity.
So ... what happened?
If you've ever wondered why there aren't nearly as many movie tie-ins as there used to be, The Dark Knight is a perfect example.
The Dark Knight failed for the exact same reason that so many other tie-ins fail: making a video game takes a lot longer than making a movie. They're two extremely different industries, and trying to jam a game's development into the same timeframe as a film's production cycle always leads to trouble — it's what happened with THQ's cancelled Avengers game, and it's what happened to EA's Dark Knight game.
To be fair, the team at Pandemic did have to deal with the fact that its game engine was absolute garbage — but it wouldn't have been the first time that a development team would have to switch out its tech. Maybe if it had had more time or EA was willing to keep funding the game, The Dark Knight would have made it to store shelves ... but considering how good the Batman: Arkham games have been, The Dark Knight's cancellation may have been for the best.
Strangely enough, Batman's video game future is in question once again: with Rocksteady Games supposedly leaving the Dark Knight behind, gamers have no idea what to expect.
That being said, all of the Batman: Arkham games were amazing ... so, it's probably safe to say that the Caped Crusader's next game won't have much trouble hitting store shelves.
