It sounds like whatever Rocksteady’s next Batman project is it has nothing to do with Batman Beyond, fake leaks or otherwise.
While Batman used to maintain regular appearances in video games, there hasn’t been a wholly traditional Batman game in years (not counting VR spin-off Batman: Arkham Shadow in 2024).
This month’s Lego Batman: Legacy Of The Dark Knight is finally breaking the hiatus, and looks to be not just a refreshing take on the Lego game formula but a welcome stand-in for Rocksteady’s Batman Arkham games. Although it’s also a reminder that Rocksteady’s future is rather nebulous at the moment.
Fans of the series thought they found a glimmer of hope with an alleged leak of Rocksteady’s next game – a continuation of the Arkham series – but said leak was quickly dismissed as a fake.
The leak originated from 4chan (which already made it suspect), with an anonymous source claiming a new Arkham game based on the award-winning Batman Beyond cartoon (known as Batman of the Future in Europe) was in the works.
This is not the first rumour to claim Rocksteady are working on something to do with Batman Beyond, although this one came with screenshots depicting an unfinished city environment and Batman engaged in traditional Arkham combat.
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Unfortunately, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier hopped into a ResetEra thread about the supposed leak and succinctly dismissed the whole thing as ‘Faaaaaake,’ meaning the screenshot is probably just AI generated.
Granted, all the additional details sounded too good to be true, with claims that the game’s story was being written by Paul Dini, one of Batman Beyond’s original writers, and featuring the Nemesis system from the Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor games.
The rumour went so far as to claim Rocksteady would be retconning the events of Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, which really sounds like the kind of unnecessary course correction some fans would want to hear.
Batman Beyond featured an elderly Bruce Wayne mentoring a younger Batman and was part of the DC Animated Universe of the late 90s and early 2000s. The character’s costume has been featured in previous Rocksteady Batman games as a DLC extra.
Schreier himself reported last year that Rocksteady is making a new Batman game, after the failure of Suicide Squad, with a new single-player project, but no other details were shared.
No doubt the game was still in the early stages at the time and even now, it’s possible Rocksteady has yet to settle on a firm premise for it, given how much uncertainty there is surrounding the future of Warner Bros. as a whole.
As a reminder, Warner Bros. is in the process of being bought out by Paramount, which includes the company’s gaming division. As such, there’s no telling how or if the gaming division will be affected by this, and there’s not even a guarantee the deal will go through, as it’s pending approval from regulators.
Worst case scenario, Rocksteady is shut down and any progress it’s made dies with it, should the new owners decide video games aren’t a priority, or the deal falls through and Warner Bros. goes into panic mode looking for ways to cut costs. But let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
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