Gameplay footage from Monolith's canceled Batman game, which eventually ended up in Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, has leaked.
Back in the early 2010s, Batman was at the height of its popularity. In the video game world, Rocksteady's Arkham series was making waves while Christopher Nolan was wrapping up his critically acclaimed Batman trilogy starring Christian Bale. At the same time, Monolith Productions, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Games, was working on its own Batman game that never got off the ground and was eventually reimagined into one of the company's most successful games, Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor.
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Now, a large amount of gameplay and resources from the game have been revealed. X/ Twitter user SpideyRanger notes that he found the videos on the Internet Archive, and a comment replies to him praising user Back2Life for finding and posting the materials. It's unclear how they managed to obtain them, but there's a fair amount of footage.
Project Apollo shows Batman jumping off a building and dropping down onto an elevated railway track directly above a crime scene. Before he jumps, a bit of UI is shown that guides the player to an earlier version of the game's menu, showing missions that can be followed and a loading screen divided into four sections: battle, stealth, gadgets, and vehicles. The player enters the stealth section, where they could potentially purchase or unlock skills like new takedown positions, a silent glide attack, and more.
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A map of the area can also be seen in the footage, showing bat-shaped icons that would be active crimes or missions that Batman could follow. As he flies in to intervene in an “environmental crime,” we hear police chatter, but before we see any footage of the battle, the gameplay fades out and transitions to the post-battle state. It’s early footage, so you can’t really blame them for not having everything in the game.
Another video shows what is likely a more recent version of the same menu, which now offers a much smoother interface, as well as some stealth gameplay. In it, Batman hugs a wall and uses the Project Apollo version of Detective Vision (a major feature of the Arkham games) to scan something nearby. Later, he throws a smoke bomb into the next room to stun the villains and uses Detective Vision to find them in the smoke and neutralize them. Aside from that, it's very similar to Rocksteady's games.
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While the gameplay footage in this leak is brand new, this isn't the first we've heard about this canceled title. A previous investigation by DidYouKnowGaming's Liam Robertson a few years ago revealed countless details about Project Apollo, such as the fact that the title was in development for around 18 months before it was ultimately canceled and that it was an open-world title. The most important tidbit, however, is that this canceled Batman game was also the birth of Shadow of Mordor's famous Nemesis system, which would have had the ability to randomly generate unique Gotham City villains to oppose Batman and return stronger than the last time you faced them.
According to Robertson's research, the game was ultimately canceled because it didn't have the support of director Christopher Nolan. WB Games made it clear to Monolith that the game couldn't continue development without his stamp, as it was inspired by and based on the universe of his film trilogy. Monolith even had trouble reaching Nolan, who was busy elsewhere, but he probably just didn't care enough to pay attention, which ultimately ruined the game. Monolith then changed direction and moved into the Lord of The Rings property. The rest, as they say, is history.
Since then, Monolith has made a sequel to Shadow of Mordor, licensed the Nemesis system from WB Games, and is now working on a Wonder Woman.
Source: kotaku
