The latest details for next year’s Batman: Arkham City have emerged from Official PlayStation Magazine UK, all thanks to the book’s cover feature on the sequel to 2009’s brilliant Arkham Asylum.

While you’ll need to (and should) find a copy of the mag at your local newsagent to get a load of the new character art and screenshots, we can still discuss at least a few of the new details that have been recently discovered…

(Note: Possible spoilers ahead.)

What’s going down in Arkham Town?

As you may already know, Quincy Sharp (one time warden of Arkham Asylum and now running for Mayor of Gotham City) has decided to build his very own city within the city of Gotham, with miles of walls surrounding Arkham Asylum and filled with criminals and the criminally insane.

This is Arkham City.

No one is allowed to leave Arkham City, and the warden of the ‘establishment,’ one Hugo Strange, will see to it that not a single denizen escapes.

According to developers Rocksteady Studios, Arkham City is roughly five times larger than Arkham Asylum, which means there’s a lot of room for mischief and ill-intent:

“[Batman’s] been monitoring this [Arkham City],” says the game’s director, Sefton Hill. “He’s worried. He thinks it’s a time-bomb waiting to explode into the streets of Gotham.” As such, Batman now patrols Arkham City (which is described as “a mix of Tim Burton’s original Batman movie and a touch of Escape from New York”) to make sure he’s aware of any tomfoolery before it happens.

If you’re worried that the size of the city will result in badly detailed and poorly realised play spaces, Rocksteady has you covered, as the team told OPM UK that every corner of the city has a story to tell. These side-stories will be discovered through the use of Batman’s forensics and crime solving capabilities, which Rocksteady wants to encourage gamers to use more often this time around, although you won’t have to complete these missions.

And if you’re thinking that with such a large area to cover, players will need a nice speedy way to move Batman from one place to another… you’d be thinking along the right lines. When asked if drivable vehicles will see their debut in Batman: Arkham City, a Warner Bros. Interactive PR handler curiously said that it’s “something we’ll cover at a later date.”

Drivable Batmobile? Yes please.

See Batman Run… Don’t Run, Batman, Fly!

Rocksteady will, however, be including some other neat new gadgets and abilities to allow players to more easily make their way around the city, and one of these new devices was revealed to be the Grapple Boost, which pulls and launches Batman into the air and can be followed up with a new dive ability, allowing you to essentially fly at high speed, at street level.

It’s also now possible to slide and smash through grates and vents, as well as dive through windows and over railings, while Batman also has new moves for “running across rooftops, blending in, running while grappling, sliding underneath objects” and “jumping between objects.”

Additionally, Batman has access to a second zipline, which can be used in unison with the first. Could we see the first ever iteration of Spider-Bat in Arkham City? Hopefully not – that would be disgusting.

While fighting will apparently be very similar to Arkham Asylum’s combat mechanics (using combinations of punches and kicks, as well as gadgets and throws), Batman will at times face up to (and even over) 40 enemies in a room at once, with “bigger fights” promised by Sefton Hill.

More fancy manoeuvres being added to Batman’s arsenal of attacks include the ability to launch aerial attacks from walls and windows, backflip and spray explosive gel on the floor before detonating the gel and stunning enemies, initiating ‘beatdown’ flurry attacks on ne’er do wells, hanging from above and choking an enemy with Batman’s legs, punching through wall panels to get to enemies on the other side, as well as the ability to throw projectiles back at enemies.

And… Co-op?

During the demonstration shown to OPM UK, Catwoman was seen using her whip in the same way that Batman uses his zipline, which lead to the question: Will Catwoman be playable as a cooperative character in Batman: Arkham Asylum? Sefton Hill has the final word on that, saying simply:

“I’m not allowed to comment on that.”

Dang.

For these and even more details, screenshots and character art, be sure to seek out the October issue of Official PlayStation Magazine!

While you’re here, though, have a good rummage through El33tonline’s previous coverage of Batman: Arkham City for more delicious morsels of information, as well as some incredible screenshots.

Source: VG247