The Next Batman Game Has a Huge Open-World Challenge Ahead of It

DC is in a bit of a weird spot with its video games right now. Currently, the only major DC video game release on the calendar is Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, and that game isn’t exactly without its fair share of baggage already, with Rocksteady having to dramatically delay the game earlier this year and push it to 2024. Then there’s James Gunn’s new DC universe which will apparently feature some kind of synergy between all types of media, including video games. But what fans really want is much simpler than all that. Many fans just want a new Batman game.

But getting a new Batman game is much easier said than done. The Batman: Arkham series, obviously, set an incredibly high bar not just for DC games, but for the entire superhero video game genre, and it’s a bar that few games have managed to reach since. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, however, has been one of the few to reach that bar, and in turn, has continued to raise it for subsequent superhero games. And when it comes to one gameplay area in particular, the next Batman game is really going to struggle to reach that new bar.

RELATED: Batman’s Next Game Should Take a Page Out of The Batman’s Playbook

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 Sets a New Bar for Superhero Traversal

Spider-Man games have had pretty great web-swinging mechanics since the debut of 2004’s Spider-Man 2. The first real instance of an open-world setting in a Spider-Man game, Spider-Man 2‘s web-swinging had to match the scale of its city, and in the process delivered a physics-based system that still feels pretty good even two decades later. While the quality of web-swinging then faltered a bit over the next few Spider-Man entries, 2018’s Marvel’s Spider-Man brought things back on course, setting the bar for cinematic, accessible, and satisfying web-swinging.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 takes those excellent foundations from its predecessor and only continues to build on them, setting the bar even higher in the process. With an open world twice the size of the first game, Spider-Man 2 makes a number of big upgrades to its traversal, from the inclusion of Web Wings that let players glide through the city, to web-swinging speed upgrades, to a new ability that lets players slingshot themselves off buildings. Spider-Man 2 also has a whole new set of animations to make it all look suitably impressive, including new air tricks and a slew of new swing-out animations.

How a Batman Game Can Match Spider-Man 2’s Traversal

The Batman: Arkham series had a great traversal system that was continuously improved upon with each new entry. Batman: Arkham Knight took things as far as possible with the Caped Crusader’s traversal, giving the hero an array of gliding mechanics that let players traverse the entirety of Gotham City fairly quickly. But Batman doesn’t really lend himself to as many traversal mechanics as Spider-Man, and a future Batman game might struggle to live up to the recently released superhero sequel, though there are a few different things it could do.

While the appearance of the Batmobile in Arkham Knight is still very divisive even today, vehicles are still just an inherent part of the Batman character, and a future Batman game might actually find success in just doubling down on that. Along with a Batmobile, players could be given access to the Batwing, the Batcycle, and maybe even the Batboat. Additionally, Batman could be given a few new grappling hook moves, such as the ability to swing from the grapple and go straight into a glide, as opposed to being forced to zip up to the top of a building or structure first, which might help to make the game’s traversal feel a bit more fluid.