Spring-Loaded
Member
Arkham Knight
Just about everything involving movement feels good to use, and it all reaches a good balance between which aspects are scripted and providing the player a high degree of control. Everything from diving under floor grates, to moving underneath them, to gliding into a wall before kicking off of it and gliding in another direction, to sliding into, grapneling up or sliding down vents, using the zipline to stop in midair and perch there, to sliding off a ledge to immediately go into hanging off of it, to powersliding around corners, boosting and dodging rockets while driving in the Batmobile, to launching out of the Batmobile at high speeds and going straight into a glide, to going from a chain of "fear takedowns" and immediately diving under floor grates or grapneling up to the rafters, to diving off ledges into the Batmobile ... pretty much all forms of movement in that game are polished to a shine.
gifs stolen from Net_Wrecker:
Text stolen from me:
Just about everything involving movement feels good to use, and it all reaches a good balance between which aspects are scripted and providing the player a high degree of control. Everything from diving under floor grates, to moving underneath them, to gliding into a wall before kicking off of it and gliding in another direction, to sliding into, grapneling up or sliding down vents, using the zipline to stop in midair and perch there, to sliding off a ledge to immediately go into hanging off of it, to powersliding around corners, boosting and dodging rockets while driving in the Batmobile, to launching out of the Batmobile at high speeds and going straight into a glide, to going from a chain of "fear takedowns" and immediately diving under floor grates or grapneling up to the rafters, to diving off ledges into the Batmobile ... pretty much all forms of movement in that game are polished to a shine.
gifs stolen from Net_Wrecker:
Text stolen from me:
Batman: Arkham Knight adapts various methods of traversal used in Batman media to video games. Rocksteady did a great job building a solid mechanical framework for the gameplay in the Arkham series (something no one got close to doing before). It's the closest a game has come to giving a player a comprehensive set of Batman abilities; it functionally feels like controlling (dare I say, being) Batman, in a physical sense. I've always felt each game fell short in some way, but considering how each game broke new ground in considerable ways, I could easily forgive the shortcomings.
That development of abilities culminates with Arkham Knight that lets you do just about every physical Batman maneuver to some degree. That includes all the traversal options, and how they play into how you approach an enemy watchtower or patrol. You can glide, use the zipline gadget to create a tightrope in midair, then perch above an enemy encampment. You can use the grapnel gun on a ledge where an enemy is standing, zip up to them, grab them on the way up and slam them into the ground using the momentum, then dash underneath nearby floor grates. You can drive toward a group of patrolling militia members, launch out of the Batmobile before they notice, glide to a nearby billboard/lightpole/catwalk/etc. and watch as they keep firing at the Batmobile thinking you're still inside before dropping down and taking them out one-by-one slilently, or just gliding into and dive-bombing into them.
Such a fantastic foundation, and I hope what Rocksteady accomplished can be used in the future, or at least inspires future devs.