Batman Arkham Knight: Combat Gameplay Mechanics Detailed

While Batman is busy working his way further up the ladder of becoming the total badass we already know he is thanks to that new rating and getting set to tackle a torrent of baddies straight from the pages of his history, not to mention a mystery figure, Rocksteady Social Marketing Mangager Gaz Deaves has given us some cool new information on the the game’s combat mechanics.

Speaking about what it is to play a Rocksteady Batman game, Deaves talks about how combat (now more than ever) ties into how our hero operates. He said, “We’ve got one central goal that unites everything we do at Rocksteady: make the player feel like they are the Batman. FreeFlowCombat is a big part of creating that feeling, and we’ve spent a lot of time looking at ways to supercharge that experience for the player.”

“So this time around you can use parts of the environment against your enemies, like dropping a ceiling light on a thug’s head or pulling an air conditioning unit off the wall for a quick knockout. This opens up a positional element to the gameplay, because if you’re paying attention to the environment you can use it, too.”

The M rating that Arkham Knight has received has implications in the gameplay department too, so it would seem. For those versed in certain comic and visual novel lines, it’s well documented that Batman doesn’t shy away from (literally) cracking a few skulls.

Speaking about the newly reformed combat and how it allows Batman to turn his aggressors weapons against them, he said “We’ve also introduced a weapon steal system, allowing Batman to confiscate enemy weapons like lead pipes, and turn those weapons against the thugs. Batman has always been a fighter who can use his brain just as well as his fists, and it felt very natural for us to build new moves like these into freeflow combat.”

“From a production standpoint, the game has been in development for over three years, so this final stage is all about polishing the experience to the point where we’re happy handing our baby over to the fans.”

The hype, is very real.