No multiplayer for Batman: Arkham City
Rocksteady: "We've made the right decision."
There are no multiplayer modes in forthcoming superhero sequel Batman: Arkham City, developer Rocksteady Studios has confirmed.
The game's director, Sefton Hill, told IGN that the studio had chosen to concentrate all its efforts on delivering a polished single player experience instead.
"Our thought process behind this was fairly simple," Hill explained. "When we investigated adding multiplayer we asked, 'If we use all of the energy that is required to create multiplayer and instead focus this on the single player, would that deliver a better overall game?'
"With the game now coming to the final stages, I can honestly say it would not have been possible to deliver Arkham City the way we wanted to if we'd have added multiplayer.
"So it might not be the fashionable choice, it might not get us an extra tick on the box, but we are convinced, and we hope that gamers will agree when they get to play the finished game, that we have made the right decision."
Its predecessor, Arkham Asylum, certainly didn't suffer too much from being single player-only. It won a near-perfect 9/10 from Eurogamer's Dan Whitehead and was a huge smash for publisher Warner Bros back in 2009.
The follow-up arrives on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 later this year.