Warner Bros Montreal admits it worried it had ‘bitten off more that it could chew’ with Arkham Origins

Batman: Arkham Origins was released today, and one of its key developers has admitted that it was at one stage concerned with the project.

Although the wider public remains completely oblivious, there has been plenty of noise on forums about the fact that it’s the first Arkham game not be developed by Rocksteady, with Warner Bros Montreal instead handling development duties.

"Obviously resistance and reluctance exists at every level," senior producer Ben Mattes told Eurogamer. "There were fans who said ‘They’re not Rocksteady, they can’t make an Arkham game.’ And there were concerns within the organisation that we weren’t going to be able to deliver the special sauce of a Rocksteady game.

"And there were concerns within our team, like ‘Maybe we’ve bitten off more than we can chew? Are we sure we’re able to dance with these guys? Do we deserve to be in this same hallowed ground?’ You don’t want to be the guys who messed up and ran into the ground one of the absolute, top-rated franchises of all time. You don’t want that at the top of your CV. ‘Yeah, I’m the guy who turned a 96 into a 60, that’s my claim to fame.’

So I think there was an extra desire to create something really great as we were fully aware of the opportunity that we had. We wouldn’t have continued through the years if we didn’t feel we had a shot.

I think every subsequent piece of code we’ve shown has won over more and more of the public, to the point where it now stands out as an exception if we see someone who’s still towing that line of ‘It’s not Rocksteady, it’s not going to be good.’ There’s only, like, one in a 1,000 it seems now still playing that card."

"I’m really proud of what we’ve done."