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A long time ago, developer Monolith was working on a Batman game based on the Christopher Nolan-directed Dark Knight film. This project would eventually be canceled, but Monolith would eventually use elements from it to develop Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and its signature Nemesis System. New gameplay footage and images for the game–codenamed Apollo–have surfaced online and have been compiled into a thread on X/Twitter by user SpideyRanger.
Comprised of previously released assets from a 2019 Did You Know Gaming video and dev portfolios, the thread shows off some of the Arkham Asylum-inspired stealth gameplay mechanics, the open-world design of Gotham City, and some of the wonderful toys Batman could play with. Monolith’s Nemesis System would have debuted in the game, allowing enemies to keep (painful) memories of their encounters with Batman, and the idea was to use this system to help distinguish the game from Rocksteady’s Arkham series.
Some of the other images show off the Tumbler Batmobile that Batman would use in the game, and more details on this vehicle can be found on 3D environment artist Joel Cuellar’s ArtStation page. As for why Monolith’s game was never released? SpideyRanger claims in their thread that Warner Bros. didn’t think it was a good idea to have two Batman gaming franchises active at the same time, leading to the retooling of Apollo into Shadow of Mordor.
The Middle-earth game was a big hit for Monolith and received a sequel a few years later, called Shadow of War. Currently, the studio is working on a Wonder Woman game that Warner Bros. describes as a “single-player action-adventure game” set in a dynamic open-world and featuring the Nemesis System. Warner Bros. also confirmed that Wonder Woman won’t be a live-service game, even though the company is planning to double down on those types of games in the future.
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