If there was one title I was looking forward to seeing more of at E3 it was Batman: Arkham Knight. That was even before the epic showing during the Sony press conference and the other awesome gameplay snippets. It is one of the few titles that truly looked next gen to me back when it was first announced and it still holds up even though it was pushed out further for launch. None the less I was able to see a bit more for Batman: Arkham Knight that wasn't shown to the public at large. Here's a bit of a break down.

We've seen a bit of the new battle mode for the Batmobile already for Batman: Arkham Knight so I'll glance over that as there is nothing new from what I have seen. Not that there isn't anything new for the Batmobile, like remote driving and Batman team-up takedowns, just nothing new for battle mode. Wait…did I just say that there was a way to "team up" with the Batmobile to takedown enemies?

In fact I did and this was one of the new features that were shown. During a combo, if the vehicle is close enough, you can launch an enemy into the air and the Batmobile will shoot them down with a non-lethal round. I may be making a bigger deal about that than it really is but it is an awesome new feature that links into the remote play of the Batmobile. If you want something a bit closer to that then do know that there are parts of Batman: Arkham Knight that will require you to "stealthy" use the Batmobile to set up enemy takedowns to get out of sticky situations. One in particular had Batman cornered by the Arkham Knight and his goons and we had to set up targeting system to break Bats out of the glass cage as well as takedown most of the baddies.

Moving on from there we were also shown a bit more on the fear and stealth takedown moves. In this case the number of enemies has been increased to three if they are all positioned in the correct places. While it looked cool on the screen as far as a gameplay addition I think it is a bit much to add. It really is a "push a button to win" kind of mechanic as that is all that is needed to take down up to three enemies without any concern of combat. Apparently two wasn't enough and while cannon for Batman would state he could do it, as a game mechanic it kind of takes away a bit of the challenge.

While that seems to have added a bit of ease to Batman: Arkham Knight's gameplay, I would have to say that the Bat Scanner (Or whatever they call is) was a greatly needed addition to fix the issue with Detective Mode. No clue if that has been eliminated but this sensor is a Batarang that is thrown out to scan the area and feedback information to Batman. It was quite reminiscent of the enemy tagging in Ground Zeroes. It also put the control there back into the player's hands instead of being told everything from Rocksteady. So it is quite possible that we can miss something on the first pass that would require a bit more gameplay to figure things out.

Lastly, and this is in the interest of time, we got a bit more in the way of who the Arkham Knight is. Well at least how deadly and dangerous he is in Batman: Arkham Knight. Like the fact that he knows where all of the weak spots on Batman's armor are located as well as the fact that he has a deep seeded hatred from the caped crusader that is only touched upon. The promise of revenge against Batman is his reasons for helping out Scarecrow and Scarecrow wants to make Batman suffer before Arkham Knight can dispatch the Bat.

Plain and simple Batman: Arkham Knight looks to be the great finale that we all deserve in the franchise. I am still not sure why the game delayed until 2015 instead of this October because it looked like it was read to move to disc from the extra gameplay that was shown on the E3 floor. My guess would have to be more of the Scarecrow challenge maps as they too are making a comeback from Arkham Asylum. That was one of my favorite pieces of gameplay and truly wished there was more of it. Looks like my wish has been granted.