While it has been something of an open secret that Rocksteady is working on a new Batman game, it looks like development is ramping up. As caught by social media user ArkhamVideos, Rocksteady Studios now has a new game director, Bill Money. While no official announcement has been made, Money’s LinkedIn profile indicates that he has been working with Rocksteady as a game director since July.
Money has worked in several different gaming companies in the past, with his most recent stint having been with Ubisoft Singapore where he worked on a host of titles, including Assassin’s Creed Mirage, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, its The Siege of Paris DLC, and Assassin’s Creed Origins. In the past, Money has also worked on a host of different titles, including classics like the PS2 port of Deus Ex, as well as the PC and Xbox versions of Deus Ex: Invisible War.
A job listing spotted back in March indicated that Rocksteady’s next Batman game will be a cross-generation release, coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S as well as whatever the next-gen consoles might end up being. This would also indicate that the title is still three to four years away, since that would fall in the alleged time frame of new consoles.
Rocksteady’s work on this new title comes after the studio released Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, considered by publisher WB Games as a commercial failure. Since then, however, DC Studios co-heads James Gunn and Peter Safran had noted that they had spoken with Rocksteady, along with Mortal Kombat and Injustice developer NetherRealm Studios about their respective next projects.
“We work incredibly closely with JB Perrette, who runs that division,” said Safran back in February. “It’s really the first time it’s ever been this way at Warner Bros. James and I sit with the guys that run the studios under JB, whether it’s NetherRealm or Rocksteady. We sit with them and we talk about characters and stories that we’re interested in and that they’re interested in.”
Gunn spoke about having conversations with the studios about where they currently are with their projects, and what their next projects might be. It is worth noting that these conversations would likely involve games that are still early in their development processes.
“We see designs for the projects in their very earliest stages,” said Gunn. “We talk about those, we talk about what the story might be, and we’ll say ‘Well, you may want to go this way because we’re planning on maybe doing something with this character.’”
The failure of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League had reportedly led to a host of lay-offs at Rocksteady. There were also reports at the time that the studio was looking to go back to working on single-player games rather than live-service multiplayer titles, since the studio is most well-known for its work on the Batman: Arkham games.
