Batman: Arkham Knight Video Game Details Reveal Oracle’s Expanded Role

Ready for more Batman? I know I always am. Putting personal preferences aside, Rocksteady is set for another installment of the Arkham franchise with Batman: Arkham Knight and as revealed a few details you might be interested in. For instance, the “Arkham Knight” is not Batman, but another fellow, whose picture is after the jump. Oh, and also Barbara Gordon/Oracle.

Well?

He’s got a Batman look and some red highlights. Jason Todd, anyone? Rocksteady isn’t telling but Nerdist has a few more new screengrabs from the upcoming game which welcomes Kevin Conroy back to voice the main man.

“Batman: Arkham Knight takes place 12 months after the events of Arkham City. Joker is presumed dead and the Scarecrow has taken control by gathering the villains of Gotham City for one last assault on the Dark Knight,” they write, after having viewed a demo. “The combat system has been refined with features like full grapple reversals and the ability to use gadgets while gliding in the air. Rocksteady also included the ability to perform Fear Takedowns, which allows for players to chain together stealth chain takedowns on multiple enemies within a room at an instant.”

Kotaku also got to attend the demo and says the game will be available for PC/PS4/Xbox One. They also posted a full transcript of what went down if you want to read the entire thing but here’s an interesting bit:

Brand-new move, the full grapple reversal. You can see Gaz kicking off and doing a 180-degree spin. As we carve through here we can see the Gotham clock tower dead ahead of us. We’re going to use this to kick off and grapple and get some insane altitude. We’re going to come back to this location later on, because it’s a critical legendary location for Batman fans, because that’s where Oracle’s hideout is and a kind of mini-Batcave is located.

Our top pic is a cropped portion of the larger image which indeed includes Oracle’s Clocktower. And yeah, it looks like she’s going to have an expanded role this time around:

There’s the clocktower ahead of us. So you guys will know that Oracle plays this role as sort of technical support to Batman. Her headquarters are behind the clock face of the Gotham clock tower. She and Batman know the secret location and how to access it. We’re going to use our gadget to unlock the entrance to it, and we’re going to see Oracle for the first time. In previous games, she’s only been a voice in Batman’s ear. This time you’ll meet her physically in-game. Another seamless transition from exterior to interior. As you’ll see, this is Barbara Gordon’s apartment. But in detective mode we can see the bust of Shakespeare giving us an indicator that there’s a trigger there to transform this apartment into the mini-Batcave that is Oracle’s HQ.P

[Music swells… computers beep and whir… Batman pores over the data… Oracle comes in. She’s in a wheelchair, true to the pre-New-52 comic book version of the character]

So, when do I get to play, Rocksteady?

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Jill Pantozzi

Jill Pantozzi is a pop-culture journalist and host who writes about all things nerdy and beyond! She’s Editor in Chief of the geek girl culture site The Mary Sue (Abrams Media Network), and hosts her own blog “Has Boobs, Reads Comics” (TheNerdyBird.com). She co-hosts the Crazy Sexy Geeks podcast along with superhero historian Alan Kistler, contributed to a book of essays titled “Chicks Read Comics,” (Mad Norwegian Press) and had her first comic book story in the IDW anthology, “Womanthology.” In 2012, she was featured on National Geographic’s "Comic Store Heroes," a documentary on the lives of comic book fans and the following year she was one of many Batman fans profiled in the documentary, "Legends of the Knight."

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