Inside the Canceled Batman Game That Would Have Pitted the Dark Knight Against Jack the Ripper
· Vice
When Batman: Arkham Asylum launched in 2009, Day 1 Studios—the developers behind F.3.A.R.—were already working on their own pitch for a video game featuring the Caped Crusader. In Gotham by Gaslight, players would’ve assumed the role of Batman as he pursued the notorious serial killer Jack the Ripper. Based on the one-shot comic book of the same name (which included an intro from Psycho author Robert Bloch), the game was to be set in 19th-century Gotham City.
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Not much is known about the proposed plot beyond that, but in the comic, Jack the Ripper makes his way to Gotham, and Bruce Wayne is framed for his murders. In January 2012, visual artist Julie Farrell revealed that the project was also intended to have a steampunk vibe. The following month, test footage was uploaded online that showed Batman wandering around the foggy, Victorian-era streets of the city and jumping from rooftop to rooftop. Take a look for yourself below.
A Batman Game Set in Victorian Gotham Was Almost Made, and It Looked Incredible
Gotham by Gaslight was reportedly pitched for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in collaboration with THQ, but they apparently couldn’t secure the Batman rights and shut the project down shortly after the demo was made.
“Everyone that saw it loved it. There was a spark that I hadn’t seen when working on other games,” Joe van den Heuvel, who designed Batman’s cape for the prototype, told Siliconera in 2012. “When it was canned it was soul destroying. It was a big disappointment.”
But although Gotham by Gaslight still hasn’t been adapted into a stand-alone video game, Batman’s outfit from the original comic eventually made its way into Batman: Arkham Origins, Injustice: Gods Among Us, and Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight. Warner Bros. released an animated film inspired by the story in 2018 as well. You can check out the trailer for the movie right here:
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