The recent news that EA had "set free" Pandemic Brisbane came as a bit of a shock to some and was seen as brutal accounting by most. It was widely rumored that the studio was working on a movie tie-in to recent blockbuster smash "The Dark Knight". Well, it looks like Kotaku has the full story as to why we never saw an open-world Batman game.
Quote:
Bravo's new project came as a result of Pandemic's negotiations with Time Warner and DC Comics, which in turn lead to a contract with EA to make a Batman game. The only hitch was that EA's rights to the Batman IP were set to expire in 18 months. EA needed the Batman game released within that timeframe. Pandemic felt this meant EA would do anything they could to ensure that timeframe would be met and they could recoup their investment.
Pre-production commenced with the Brisbane team excited by the idea of turning such a revered franchise into the as-yet-untitled game. It seems that it took several months before the team was informed that the Batman game they were making had to be based on the upcoming Dark Knight film. This not only meant they were tied to a very specific vision of Batman - and that several months worth of planning had to be scrapped - but they were now tied to an even tighter deadline: the theatrical release of the movie.
Please note this is based on unrevealed sources. It is an interesting tale none-the-less. Here's hoping Arkham Asylum survives the current troubles at Eidos.
Could be true, when I was a QA Lead, developers that never locked down code and art, as well as never stuck to some form of dev schedule aggravated me.
