11 Fascinating Gaming Moments That Almost Happened

7. The Dark Knight Movie Tie-In Would Have Meant No Arkham Asylum

Although a world without Batman: Arkham is one all too many fans would hate to contemplate, it’s true, Rocksteady’s franchise nearly never made it to market.

The 2000s may be heralded as a ‘golden age’ of gaming, but it was also an age of half-baked movie tie-ins, most of which seemed to feature the Caped Crusader in a starring role. This first commenced with 2005’s Batman Begins, and with Christopher Nolan gearing up to release a follow up - The Dark Knight - in 2008, Warner Bros. were keen to cash in.

The task for making a Dark Knight movie video game fell to Pandemic, the studio who had previously helmed the once beloved Star Wars: Battlefront series for LucasArts. By all accounts, their vision for a Batman title actually seemed rather compelling too, with it having ditched the linear format of Begins and opting for an open world Gotham in the vein of Spider-Man 2.

However, the game was binned off several months into development, which led WB to reconsider their plans and give the franchise to Rocksteady, who set about making the best superhero video game of all time with Arkham Asylum. Snakes and ladders, really.

EP