B AT M A N
GOTHAM CITY CHRONICLES
– because we love the theme. We always stay true to the original material. If something is said a certain way in the original material, we don’t try to change it because we think that it wouldn’t be true to the author, to the creator and to what people like in this genre. That’s why we had some heat coming our way on Conan, but we accept it because that’s the way that Howard intended it in the first place. That’s what we’re going to do with Batman – we’re going to stay true to the original material, the comics, so everything you see in the game will be true to the comics, including the depiction of women.” Badi quickly adds the counterpoint that the span of modern comics serving as the base for Gotham City Chronicles have seen several steps forward in the way female and LGBT+ characters are presented. “Anyway, in the Batman universe you have characters like Batwoman, for instance, who is a very strong female character,” he says. “She’s modern, she’s homosexual, she lives a normal life when she doesn’t have her outfit. We don’t have any issue with that, so we’re going to do it the same way with Batman.”
TEAM GAME Although you’ll be able to replay storylines from Batman comics in Gotham City Chronicles, the game doesn’t go so far as to stop you taking your favourite hero along for the ride – even if they weren’t in the original story. Most of the time, it’ll be down to the players to decide who’s best suited to each mission. “One of the enhancements we’ve made since Conan is that at the beginning of a scenario you’ll be able to pick and choose your hero,” Dadi says. “Maybe we will sometimes fix or impose a hero because they’re key to the storyline, but other than that you’ll be able to say, ‘Okay I want to play with Huntress more than Robin’ or ‘I want to play with Red Hood more than Catwoman’. MICRO You’ll be able to pick and choose your hero and create 1 ORDINATEUR your roster at the beginning of the scenario and play it BATCAPE like this. So it has a lot of replayability.” 2 1 G BATARAN This also means that Batman isn’t always the star of the show. In one introductory mission, for example, Bane has planted some bombs under Gotham City Hospital. A team of three heroes could see Batman and Red Hood clearing the way with their fighting prowess, while the agile and bombsavvy Catwoman defuses the charges. “We didn’t make Batman an overpowered man who can do it all,” Badi stresses. “He’s good in all the aspects, he’s sometimes great in some aspects like intelligence because he’s the world’s greatest detective, but he’s not overpowered. The other characters have all the skills that really fit with Batman and work together. So Batman is not the 1 one who’s going to do everything.” The baddies are less flexible, with a specific foe 1 defined for each encounter, but some missions might see two supervillains work together instead of being a single boss and their henchpeople. Players can choose who they take on a mission and how they fill up their Bat-belt, allowing “We know that these guys love to team up – it’s for a variety of ways to tackle a single scenario and plenty of replayability between matches always temporary, but they love to team up,”
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