Batman: Arkham Knight’s Batmobile was designed to be a ‘rugged machine’

When you think about it, there’s always going to be that one Batmobile that defines Batman for you. For some, its the Lincoln Futura from Batman ‘66. For others, it’s the low dragster from the Tim Burton Movies or the organic beast that popped up in Batman Forever and the Drew Carey Show.

Hell, even Batman & Robin had a kickass car, provided that you were a fan of Pimp My Ride, with a ludicrous and tricked out ride. Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy introduced a grittier and meaner Batmobile that was known as the Tumbler. And all of those vehicles combined, may very much describe the Batmobile in Rocksteady’s Batman: Arkham Knight game.

And according to Rocksteady’s Social Marketing Manager Gaz Deaves, the design for their Batmobile was one that would provide power and speed from a gameplay department.

“We started with a feature list of what we wanted the Batmobile to do from a gameplay perspective, and it’s really important that anything we create, makes sense as a game,” Deaves told me at E3.

 

So we thought, well, we wanted to be able to drive over and through obstacles. So that eliminated the dragster designs, the very low to the ground style because it wouldn’t be able to drive up stairs convincingly for example.

 

We wanted the Batmobile to be able to go anywhere! So you’ll be able to go up stairs, you’ll be able to smash up concrete barriers, you’ll be going off-road as much as you like, so it needed to be a rugged machine. We needed it to be super-fast as well, it had to have an an after-burner on so it ended up with this super-heavy sports car kind of design that we really liked.

 

The ejector seat, we did have it further back in a more of a dragster layout to start with, but it just didn’t make sense what we wanted Batman to do with it. And when you hit that ejector seat and you see Batman glide out, you’re going super fast and you’re in control and it feels awesome and it feels really Batman.

 

So the way that the visual look of the Batmobile came about in certainly in terms of its layout, came about from what works best from its gameplay perspective.

Good looks and a car that comes in black is just half of the package however. Ask any petrol-head, and they’ll tell you that it’s love at first listen, not sight. For this Batmobile, plenty of high performance vehicles were sampled, in order to fine-tune the roar of the Batman’s greatest tool in scaring the living crap out of crime.

“Well Nick Arundel is our audio director, and he worked with his time a lot on getting the Batmobile to sound exactly right,” Deaves said.

 

He told me about recording sessions they had with all kinds of supercars, a little bit of this, a little bit of that. A little bit of dragster in order to create this enormous roar that comes through when you drive the car.

Batman: Arkham Knight is out this week, and it’s rather good according to early reviews. And yes, it does come in black.

Last Updated: June 22, 2015