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

2. Arkham Legacy... Sequel, Or Reboot?

Arkham Court of Owls Talon
Warner Bros.

So, after all those cancellations, leaks, rumours and rejected pitches, what are WB Montréal actually working on in the here and now? What have they been teasing for the past year-and-a-half?

By this point it's all but confirmed that Montréal are working on a Batman game that'll feature the Court of Owls as the main antagonists. Leaked concept art of the title emerged in 2018 and in that time numerous rumours have made their way onto the web. Is it Batman: Arkham Legacy, a sequel to Arkham Origins with a co-op focus? Or is it a full-blown Arkham reboot, one that's completely divested from the Arkhamverse players have grown so accustomed to over the last decade?

Those answers should hopefully still be coming at some point this year, but I do want to focus on something else about the Legacy/Reboot rumours. For one, the project is said to include both a co-op mode and the Bat Family. This would, assumedly, present a huge departure from the single-player oriented Arkham games of yore, and may be emblematic of WB's desire to integrate monetisable aspects into their series, as was notoriously evidenced in 2017's Shadow of War.

Regardless of whatever focus Montréal's new Batman takes, we know for a fact they are working on at least one other project. Senior designer Osama Dorias disclosed back in October 2018 that the studio were working on a "couple projects" related to DC IP, and that he'd been involved in development on both titles. One is of course Batman, but the other has so far proven to be elusive. Is it finally Superman? A return to Suicide Squad, perhaps? Only time will tell.

Advertisement
Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.