Barring any surprise reveals from Warner Bros. in the coming days, the Batman: Arkham series is essentially over. It had a great trilogy (that also included a prequel and a VR game, but who’s counting?) with a solid, if a bit ambiguous ending, but a resurrection of the Arkham series beyond that is unlikely to be rapping on gamers’ doors any time soon.
But at least we have Spider-Man.
In what was essentially the game’s first gameplay footage (we did see a tiny snippet of gameplay at the end of last year’s E3 trailer, but that hardly counts), Spider-Man showed off a mix of stealth and free-flowing combat that will look awfully familiar to Arkham fans, and, for a variety of reasons, didn’t look any less amazing.
Yes, it’s Spider-Man, not Batman, but that might be to its benefit. Not only is it Arkham, but it’s Arkham that we haven’t seen before (don’t worry, I’ll get to the Amazing Spider-Man series). A new hero showing off new moves in new ways, taking advantage of new possibilities that two years in the future buys you, Spider-Man looks to not only scratch that itch, but create a new one just for it.
It has the stealth sequences of sneaking up behind people and incapacitating them. Spider-Man can also do this from high perches, not unlike the way Batman used Gargoyles in Arkham. Furthermore, the combat seems to add in its own sense of free-flow that takes advantage of projectile webs (think Batarangs).
More importantly, it may let us forget about the terrible, no-good, very bad Amazing Spider-Man games (told you I’d get there). These are what you can call “Diet-Arkham” games, using the hit-and-counter model, without any further depth. Stealth sequences could also become boring because you didn’t have the same arsenal of environmental and utility-belt-included means to take out enemies. That doesn’t seem to be the case in Spider-Man.
Is this the low-hanging fruit? Perhaps. But, for us Arkham fans out there, starved for a new super-hero-inspired beat-em-up, it’s going be delicious. In 2018, that is.
