What REALLY Happened To WB's Cancelled Batman: Arkham Games?

3. Schrödinger's Hero - Was There EVER A Superman Video Game?

Of course, there was one other rumour that's followed Rocksteady and Montréal for the past five years, and it had nothing to do with Batman.

When Rocksteady announced that Arkham Knight would be their last Batman game, fans were convinced they'd be moving onto another DC character soon enough. Cue the game releasing, it including all sorts of references to Superman (including a speaking cameo from Lex Luthor), and the entire Arkham fandom losing their minds. Rocksteady were SURELY working on Superman next. They just had to be.

In the years since Knight's release, pinpointing what it is exactly that Rocksteady are working on has proven almost impossible. The studio have been working on a new project for sometime now, but leaks and rumours have been scarce. Creative director Sefton Hill even took to Twitter back in 2018 to rubbish claims that Rocksteady were working on a Superman game, so what exactly has been going on?

This is where things start to get even messier. Tweets from GWW's James Sigfield last year claimed that WB had been receiving pitches from multiple studios for a Spider-Man PS4-style open world Superman game since 2013, which is where earlier leaked batches of concept art had come from. Although Sigfield stated all were rejected, he emphasised that WB could still be working on a Superman project, a statement he reiterated in a report this February claiming that Montréal's new Batman game is on for a Fall 2020 release.

More recently, Sigfield also claimed that one of those rejected pitches for a Superman game came straight from Rocksteady themselves, which is a bit of a shocker.

WB's apparent reluctance to embrace Superman is disappointing, but not all that surprising. The character has a notorious history when it comes to video games, and if even Rocksteady failed to win over the publisher on their pitch, that should convey how daunting a challenge the Man of Steel presents.

That doesn't mean the publisher have remained inactive though. These cancellations reek of indecision, but WB have held off long enough for both Rocksteady and Montréal to make huge leaps over the last few years. 2020, as it turns out, might just be the year they finally lift the lid on what they have in store...