In early 2009, shortly earlier than the launch of Batman: Arkham Asylum and a 12 months after Christopher Nolan’s The Darkish Knight, builders at Monolith have been engaged on a Batman recreation that will be related to Nolan’s movies. Gameplay footage of the sport, titled Challenge Apollo, leaked in 2024. However now, much more footage has been uncovered exhibiting off what might have been.
On January 12, retro game archivist MrTalida uploaded once-deleted-but-now-recovered Challenge Apollo information that have been discovered on an outdated exhausting drive. Included within the information, which have been created between April 2009 and January 2010, are video clips of early gameplay and in-engine exams of Challenge Apollo, with many centered on how sound and music would work within the third-person Batman motion recreation. It’s fascinating to see how a lot progress the group at Monolith made on the sport over these 10 months. You can find all of them on the Internet Archive.
Maybe the largest and coolest new info gleaned from these leaked information is gameplay footage of the Tumbler, aka Batman’s tank-like Batmobile from the Darkish Knight trilogy. Within the leaked footage, you possibly can see the Tumbler driving by means of what seems to be a big prepare yard whereas escaping police and destroying numerous objects and explosive barrels. In different phrases, a fairly standard-looking 2010-era automobile part, the sort that will usually seem in single-player AAA video games round that point.
Why the Nolan Batman recreation was canned
As talked about, we noticed footage from a later construct of this canned Batman recreation in 2024, exhibiting off fight, traversal, and extra. However even earlier than that, in 2019, Liam Robertson extensively covered this canceled project, reporting numerous particulars concerning the title, together with the truth that the sport had been in growth for roughly 18 months earlier than it was killed.
The open world of Gotham might be traversed by both gliding and using the grappling hook (as established within the Arkham video games) or by working the Tumbler/Batmobile. pic.twitter.com/VZKXJBFsgP
— SpideyRanger 🇬🇭 (@Dageekydude) April 3, 2024
It was additionally deliberate to be an open-world recreation and would have featured a system by which randomly generated Gotham Metropolis thugs would seem to battle Batman and return, stronger and angrier, later. If this sounds acquainted, it’s as a result of Monolith would take this concept and construct it into the well-known Nemesis System present in 2014’s Shadow of Mordor and its 2017 sequel, Shadow of Conflict.
As for why it was canceled, Robertson reported that writer WB Video games made it clear to Monolith that the one approach the mission might transfer ahead was if the studio might get Nolan to approve it. The sport was to be set in his model of the Batman universe, in any case, and the studio needed to ensure he was concerned. Sadly, Nolan appeared uninterested within the recreation, and Monolith ultimately gave up and pivoted to creating Lord of the Rings video games. Extra just lately, the studio was engaged on a Marvel Girl mission that will have utilized the Nemesis System, however sadly Monolith was shuttered by WB in February 2025.
