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See The Dark Knight Batman Game That Never Saw the Light of Day

According to the video, EA shut down the developer on Christmas.

43 Comments
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The Dark Knight never received a video game tie-in like its predecessor, Batman Begins. However, that doesn't mean there wasn't a game in development, and thanks to Unseen64, you can check out some early footage of the cancelled game below (via Eurogamer).

The now-shuttered Pandemic Studios, known for the original Star Wars: Battlefront and Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction, was reportedly in charge of developing a tie-in for Christopher Nolan's second Batman film. Unfortunately, the development was rife with problems.

The video claims that sticking to a schedule proved difficult for the developer, as it missed its intended release alongside The Dark Knight hitting theatres. The acquisition by Electronic Arts apparently made things even more complicated. The company set a new release date for the movie tie-in for December 2008 when the film would be coming to home video.

It was clear that the studio wouldn't hit that release date either. According to the video, The Dark Knight tie-in was cancelled in October, while Pandemic's Brisbane, Australia office, the main studio on the game, was allegedly shut down by EA on Christmas. Apparently, the cancellation of the game left EA with a $100 million bill.

Pandemic's last game was The Saboteur, which had players fighting against Nazis to liberate Paris. Development of console Batman games was handed over to Rocksteady Studios and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, which produced Batman: Arkham Asylum.

You can check out footage and learn more about The Dark Knight game that never was in the video above.

Got a news tip or want to contact us directly? Email news@gamespot.com

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Decapod_10

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Shame this game never got released, as when I played Batman Begins it was pretty decent, and an open-world Gotham would have been great. But if you had to choose between this and the Arkham trilogy (which probably wouldn't have been made if this did get made), it would be Arkham every day. Such a good trilogy (even Knight, as everyone seems to be hating that one recently - although that's justified if you got it for PC).

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etmaul

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Great video, I was always wondering why there wasn't a video game tie in. Then again, Rocksteady's Batman series was tremendous so no love lost here.

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e3man01

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If this had released, would Arkham Asylum have existed? Would it have been the game we know it as? Had this come out and bombed HARD, would WBIE have even considered a Batman game due to the poor reception of this? Like it's said, sometimes addition is thru subtraction.

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PSYCHOV3N0M

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@e3man01: Find out on the next episode of Dragon Ball Z!

Hahahahahahahah

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Dawg9000

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@e3man01: Dude, Arkham Asylum and Arkham City came out before the Avengers movie came out lol.

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e3man01

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Edited By e3man01

@Dawg9000: ? What are you talking about? This story was about a cancelled Dark Knight game, my response was about a "what if" regarding the release of this game. Avengers, wth?

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derp215

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@Dawg9000: Uh...what does the Avengers have to do with this? The OP didn't even say anything about the Avengers lol.

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normanislost

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@derp215: I think he had a brain fart and read Arkham Asylum as Avengers Assemble (which is plausible if you glance the double capital As)

IF they had chosen an engine that worked in the first place and IF the game had been atleast a 6 out of 10 score wise, there wouldn't have been an Arkham Asylum

the batman begins wasn't brilliant, but it made money and flying along side a movie is excellent publicity to sell more game, so if the game had released there would still be that partnership with EA for a third game keeping it away from rocksteady

it'd be nice to have a glimpse into a parallel earth and see how those games had turned out (an earth where they didn't use odin

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LordZorvan

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Thank god that never happened.

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rosinmonkekyx17

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"According to the video, EA shut down the developer on Christmas."

Because they realized how hard it would be to make DLC for this game

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madsnakehhh

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This is such a sad news...it only shows you that managment can be just as deadly as it can be helpful.

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cornbredx

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This reminded me of Batman Begins, the original movies video game tie in. It's not a terrible game as shocking as that may sound. It's ok and has a lot of concepts that were innovated on and made better in Arkham Asylum.

I sometimes wish I could play it again but it was on the original XBOX so that is on a decent sized list of games I can't ever play again because my original XBOX died like clock work not long after the 360 came out.

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Chronologo

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Edited By Chronologo

@cornbredx: The game was on PS2 and Gamecube also

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PrpleTrtleBuBum

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@cornbredx: I think Rocksteady took some heavy influence from Begins. They even added the fear mechanic to their last Knight game

However I really wish they had taken more influence from the Begins driving scenes. They were bit too much Burnout but they were fun and fast. In similiar way Knight should have focused on BatMOBILE. Driving on highways and alleyways at high speeds as Two-Face's, Penguin's and Harley's thugs are all over in their Lincolns and Transporters shooting at Batman with their rifles and rocket launchers and trying to ram him off the road.

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viniterra

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Edited By viniterra

Didn't know Goofy had his own game dedicated channel...

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turtlesInTime

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Edited By turtlesInTime

Soo... did Gamespot do any work to corroborate this narrative? I'm not saying it's inaccurate, but it would be nice to check with your own sources.

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PS2fweak

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@turtlesintime: Why? This isn't a news story. GS is just sharing something they think many of us would enjoy. When you read stuff like:

"The video claims that sticking to a schedule proved difficult for the developer, as it missed its intended release alongside The Dark Knight hitting theatres."

"According to the video, The Dark Knight tie-in was cancelled in October, while Pandemic's Brisbane, Australia office, the main studio on the game, was allegedly shut down by EA on Christmas. Apparently, the cancellation of the game left EA with a $100 million bill."

Gamespot is covered.

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bbq_R0ADK1LL

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Edited By bbq_R0ADK1LL

I'm just reminded what a great game The Saboteur was. Killing Nazis & bringing colour to Paris was fun.

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Spaced92

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@bbq_R0ADK1LL: It was pretty good, it overcame my hatred of Irish accents (I'm of Irish ancestry so it's probably okay for me to hate on them).

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Metallinatus

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That was a damn shame, Batman Begins was a fantastic.... FANTASTIC game....

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TheZeroPercent

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--so then
--they dumped the basic mechanics of assassins creed(a game based on the mechanics of the 6th gen spiderman games)
--into the gears of war engine
--dressed it all up in batman icing
--and boom!
--MANY gamers were deceived into thinking they had something

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xsonicchaos

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Edited By xsonicchaos

@TheZeroPercent: Rocksteady's games have nothing to do with EA's, Pandemic, or Nolan's movies. Indeed, after EA fudged, Warner Bros took their licence for Batman and decided to publish a game on their own. What you're talking about has nothing to do with the video you didn't bother to watch.

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TheZeroPercent

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@xsonicchaos:
--so you are saying
--assassins creed isnt just a 7th gen reskin of the highly successful 6th gen spiderman games?

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cornbredx

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@TheZeroPercent: It's actually not. It's another remake of Prince of Persia at it's core.

That's a fact. What you're saying is just nonsense- as the other other guy you responded to pointed out.

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TheZeroPercent

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Edited By TheZeroPercent

@cornbredx:

--spider man 'the movie' (game) came out almost 2 years before prince of persia :the sands of time
--prince of persia 3d(1999) was a tomb raider wannabe

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ahmad996

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@TheZeroPercent: Why are you uttering nonsense unrelated to the topic. Are you 10 years old.?

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xsonicchaos

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@TheZeroPercent: You know crap about video games.

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cboye18

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Edited By cboye18

It's a shame that the current Batman games have such bad combat mechanics; the story, the lore, detective mode, voice acting, graphics and most boss fights are well done. Same thing can be said about Shadow of Mordor and Mad Max. Though the Assassin's Creed series wins the price for having even worse combat mechanics coupled with abysmal movement controls.

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NbAlIvEr10000

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@cboye18: Not saying that they are the best mechanics, but they are certainly part of what made the series popular. The "counter" mechanic is something that takes skill and strategy depending on what type of enemies are involved to the next level....in fact, it was to make you seem more powerful then everyone else in the game. Now it certainly made for a different style compared to most "button-mashers" out there; but for sure games like Devil May Cry started the generation before that and if Rocksteady could have mixed a bit of that mechanic with their own, then I think it would have made up for a great combat technique.

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cboye18

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Edited By cboye18

@NbAlIvEr10000: I find the timing for counter poorly done as it doesn't punish the player when not properly used; I can literally spam counter and dodge buttons all day and avoid taken damage. There were certain instances where I can just spam the attack button and beat the crap out of the normal enemies, though it does more effort. I never feel like I'm being challenged except during boss fights (some which are pretty easy as well). They do these mechanics so casual gamers can adapt easier to the game.

Peter Brown criticized this type of combat as well when he discussed why he didn't like Mad Max: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfcfwheL5_g (1:40 -3:00).

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xsonicchaos

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Edited By xsonicchaos

@cboye18: Peter Brown's a douche! There! And he's a duplicitous douche too! Mad Max and Batman Arkham games can be frikin difficult when you get ovewhelmed by enemies. If Peter Brown likes to play at kiddie difficulty, that's his goddamn business, and you people eat it like it's chocolate. Just play the damn games and make your own damn minds. You will find the counter mechanic is pretty balanced and even one failed counter can take a chunk from your hp, in both of those games. Play the frikin games on harder difficulties, and stop frikin lying that you spam attacks and dodges and you finished the games doing that, because I know for a fact you can't do that with those guys with electric batons or the ones with the shields.

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Spaced92

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@cboye18: It's not THAT bad, but I never understood how those types of combat mechanics became so popular. Counter, counter, counter totally wins most fights with the occasional enemy forcing you to do something really specific.

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xsonicchaos

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@cboye18: And what combat mechanics do you enjoy more? I'm guessing you're gonna say either Dark Souls, like every pretentious snob, or something stupid like Mortal Kombat.

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BrazPrince

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@xsonicchaos: so saying darksouks has the best combat is being a snob now?

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xsonicchaos

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@brazprince: Yes.

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Spaced92

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@xsonicchaos: Yes. I'm sure they meant Mortal Kombat, not God of War, Ninja Gaiden, Metal Gear Rising, God Hand or Devil May Cry. And Souls games can only be enjoyed by snobs, brilliant comment.

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xsonicchaos

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@spaced92: All of those games have combo moves, yet all of those games are better played mashing buttons. No, I bet adding "brilliant comment" there at the end makes you objectively the smarter person, especially after turning one thing I wrote into whatever your brain brewed.

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cboye18

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@spaced92: Dragon's Dogma and Kingdom of Amalur also have great combat mechanics. But yeah, I agree that these game are more enjoyable because I feel I can actually die when playing those games.

For example, this one guy turned his PC monitor off and still managed to beat the crap out of the orks when playing Shadow of mordor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AV9W2ZdmjU (12:00)

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xsonicchaos

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Edited By xsonicchaos

@cboye18: Oh come on with your Dragon's Dogma and Kingdom of Amalur. There's no frikin strategy for taking out enemies, except for bosses in Dragon's Dogma. And can we stop comparing stealth and combo based combat games with RPGs?

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PrpleTrtleBuBum

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@spaced92: Those are fast-paced superhuman hack'n slash games that wouldn't work with Batman unless it was some anime version

I think Arkham's combat is pretty much what you get from Spidey2, Begins, TMNT Battle Nexus etc when you remove the clunkiness and make it smooth. Arkham is arguably even too smooth however

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JDlok

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@cboye18: Totally agree. I will never understand why and how people play assassin's creed games, and better yet, why they are even developed. I tried playing one and I was like, really? lol. these devs need to take a lesson from Japanese developers on how to animate characters, etc.

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ahmad996

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"Animate characters"? THAT'S the reason why you dislike these games. I can give you a 1000 real ones.

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