The Canned Batman Game That Could Have Been

While it’s certainly a fact that we’ve all been enjoying Batman: Arkham City and its predecessor Arkham Asylum immensely, what if those games never released? What if, instead, we’d received a different open world game centered on the caped crusader?

One studio almost did just that.

Day 1 Studios, the developer behind Fear 3 and Fracture, had at one point pitched a Batman video game to publisher THQ. Entitled Gotham by Gaslight, based on the one-shot comic by the same name, was a Batman story set near the end of the 19^th century. The game centers around the Dark Knight on his chase to hunt down Jack The Ripper.

The game was set in a foggy, unnamed world that Batman was free to explore – complete with the ability to see in the dark.

Gotham by Gaslight was initially pitched for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 around the turn of 2009 and 2010, but it was turned down and canned.

The studio has since released concept art for the game, showcasing a pretty heavy steampunk aesthetic.

In addition to art, we now have a full video of the prototype game in action, thanks to a source at the studio. You can watch the full video on Siliconera.

[via Siliconera]