Rocksteady Developing New Batman Arkham Game, DC Fighting Game Rumored

The DC games universe seems to be abuzz once more. There have been new whispers regarding the game Rocksteady Studios has been working on ever since their poorly received Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, and should these claims prove true, we can expect an all-new entry in the Batman Arkham series that will see Bruce Wayne taking to his cape once more. And while we are at it, here is some information you need to know about this one.

The source is the same account that put out the earlier WB Montreal rumor, a Reddit-adjacent account that runs in DC gaming circles and has apparently found its way to some insider connections. Credibility-wise, it's not a sure thing, but it's nothing either. Even Zay, the co-owner of the Lego Games News handle on X and someone who accurately leaked a game in the past, responded publicly and said that some of this is real and some of it isn't.

According to the rumor, Rocksteady initially looked at two directions after Suicide Squad: a Batman Beyond project and a Justice League game.

Neither of them made it past the early planning stage. It wasn't until a key meeting with James Gunn that the studio apparently made a decision to play it safe. The result is a new Batman Arkham game starring Bruce Wayne: no sidekicks, no ensemble cast, just Batman.

The new Batman Arkham game is said to be set in the largest Gotham City ever built in the franchise, and the Batmobile is back, though reportedly different from how it worked in Arkham Knight. Beyond that, details are thin. The rumor doesn't pin down whether this is a prequel to Asylum, a sequel to Knight, or a full reboot. Leaving that open is a convenient move on the leaker's part, since it means they can't technically be wrong. Worth keeping that in mind.

As for a release window, the source estimates somewhere between 2028 and 2029. But Zay pushed back on that timeline almost immediately. His take was straightforward: if Rocksteady only started major development on the new Batman Arkham game last year, then a 2028 or 2029 window for a game aiming to build the biggest Gotham ever made just doesn't add up. That's a lot of open world to fill in a short amount of time.

And that's a fair point. Rocksteady hasn't shipped a successful game since Arkham Knight in 2015. Financially speaking, the studio has basically been a liability for Warner Bros. since then, and Suicide Squad did nothing to change that. So there's real pressure here. The instinct from the executive side is going to be to move fast and recoup losses. But rushing a new Batman Arkham game, especially when this might be Rocksteady's last real shot, is exactly the kind of decision that ends studios.

There's also a deeper question worth sitting with; the current Rocksteady team is largely not the same group that built Arkham Asylum or Arkham Knight.

A significant chunk of the studio was brought in specifically for Suicide Squad, which is a very different kind of game. Whether the people now at the helm of Rocksteady Studios actually have the skill set to build a great new Batman Arkham game is something that won't be answered until the game is out, but it's going to be the question hanging over every piece of news between now and launch.

One honest take here: if Rocksteady genuinely wants to play it safe and rebuild trust, going big and open world might be the wrong move. The smartest thing a studio in their position could do is make something tight. Something focused. Arkham Asylum works because it's condensed, a compact, dense experience built around the rogues gallery, the combat, the story.

Ten hours of that done brilliantly would do more for their reputation than a sprawling open world done at an average level. The biggest Gotham ever made sounds exciting on paper, but big worlds require a lot: population, side content, things to do. If the team isn't set up for that, it just creates more surface area for things to go wrong.

That said, it makes sense why a modern studio would default to that pitch. Bigger has become shorthand for better in a lot of boardrooms, even when the games themselves tell a different story. A new Batman Arkham game built like Asylum, small and sharp, probably wouldn't sell that pitch as easily in a meeting, even if it would be the smarter game actually to make.

On the NetherRealm side of things, the rumor says the studio plans to reveal its next major title at The Game Awards later this year.

The claim is that this would be a new DC fighting game, potentially timed to coincide with the tenth anniversary of Injustice 2 and arriving as early as May 2027. NetherRealm Studios quietly canceled all remaining Mortal Kombat 1 content a while back, and if you do the math on their development cycles, the timing actually does line up.

Whether it ends up being called Injustice 3 specifically is another question; some loose chatter suggests the branding might not be that straightforward, but a DC fighting game from NetherRealm Studios at The Game Awards feels like one of the more believable parts of all this.

So where does that leave everything? The new Batman Arkham game is likely real in some form. The idea that Rocksteady landed on a Bruce Wayne-led Arkham game as the safe, expected move tracks with everything going on at WB Games right now. The scale claims and the release window are the parts worth being skeptical about. And the NetherRealm piece has enough circumstantial support to feel more grounded than the rest.

It's going to be a crowded next few years for DC games. Rocksteady Studios needs this new Batman Arkham game to land. NetherRealm Studios probably has something ready to go. The DC games calendar is filling up fast, and the ride from here to release is going to be worth following closely.