Rocksteady ‘working on Batman Beyond game as PS5 exclusive’

New job ads reveal Rocksteady is working on an open world brawler, with a rumour suggesting it’s based on the Batman Beyond cartoon.

After an entire wasted decade, in which most of the founding members left the company and the only game the studio made was the disastrous Suicide Squad, it’s fair to say that developer Rocksteady’s reputation is not what it once was.

Given the current norms of the industry, many worried that the studio would face closure but thankfully that hasn’t been the first choice of owner Warner Bros. Rocksteady did suffer layoffs but they are known to be working on a new game, one that is single-player and allegedly Batman-related.

However, whether it’s a new game in the Arkham series or something related to the new DC cinematic universe is unknown. Although a new rumour suggests that it is in fact based on late 90s animated series Batman Beyond.

Known as Batman of the Future in Europe, the show was set within the wider DC Animated Universe but featured an aged Bruce Wayne mentoring a teenager named Terry McGinnis, who becomes the new high-tech Batman.

The original show won several awards at the time and has a very distinctive art style and a completely new set of villains, so it’s strange that, apart from comics, it’s never been adapted into any other medium – beyond a terrible, low budget scrolling beat ‘em-up in 2000.

There have been several rumours of a movie version (the cancelled Batgirl film seemed to take several cues from the series, including Michael Keaton as an older Bruce Wayne) and a video game adaptation from Gotham Knights maker WB Games Montréal.

Warner Bros. have explored and then cancelled several different superhero games over the years, so even if this rumour, from leaker Lunatic Ignus, is true there’s no guarantee the game will ever be finished.

For the record though, he suggests that the game will adapt the general premise but not the art style. It’s also claimed the game will be a PlayStation 5 exclusive, in the manner of the Spider-Man games.

Whether that is true remains to be seen but Rocksteady definitely is working on a new single-player game and based on their most recent job ads it’s not just the rumoured director’s cut of Hogwarts Legacy.

The ad for a Game Director calls for someone that has ‘experience across multiple genres, particularly third person action, melee brawlers, and open world traversal games.’

So unless the students of Hogwarts have taken to using fists instead of wands that really does sound like a new Batman game.

Whether it’s Batman Beyond is impossible to tell but Rocksteady has featured the costume, and several other elements from the DC Animated Universe, in their previous games, so we know they’re fans – or at least some of them were before the madness of Suicide Squad tore the company apart.

Beyond the uncertainty of the rumour though the other problem is that, no matter what they’re working on, they’ve only just started, so it’ll be lucky to be released before 2030.

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