Analysing Environments: Batman: Arkham Knight - Man Bat Laboratory

This time around i will be focusing on a small but what i personally feel one of the strongest story telling environments in the Arkham Knight Game, the Man Bat Laboratory. This particular scene is a side mission that utilises batman's detective vision ability (Minigame and in your face story telling device) to re-sequence the events that happened here through his super bat computer. As you can see I've chosen to look at an environment that is more in the realistic side of the Art style spectrum.

Something that immediately struck out at me is that in order for the environment to work well in a realistic setting with today's high quality standard of graphics, the scene must be really complex and the amount of clutter like broken walls, debris and unique elements needed to sell the scene is a lot more than what you can get away with and infer in the comic book stylised art style of the walking dead.

This will be something i need to work into and take into account when i start designing my environments and choosing which way would have better pay off.

You find this lab after you have encountered the Man Bat character fling around Gotham's skies. First of all it's set underground and within Gotham's Old foundations, so as you enter through the dark and dank tunnel/passageway you open the doors to this destroyed science laboratory.

Now for fans of the Dark knight you would already be familiar with the lore of Man Bat but an analysis of this particular location is deserved as it strives to include players who are a little less knowledgeable about this creature.

The story of man bat is somewhat a parallel of the classic Dr.Jekyl Mr. Hyde but with Bats, and the old brick and mortar and the underground nature of the laboratory hearkens me back to the victorian fixation with digging underground and finding horror. Already the setting is perfect to showcase the creepy Origins of Man Bat. The wires strewn about the place and the make do nature of the lab tells me that this man is desperate with his research and experiments, the nature of having a secret lab is to do experiments that are frowned upon by society's norms and further the norms of research agencies in the world itself, is it that great of a taboo?

The white board on the wall gives some context as to what Dr. Kirk Langstrom is trying to achieve, as well as being one of Riddler's Riddles.

The big TV in the room is the major piece in the environment that catches your eye as you enter the room, It serves to inform the player about the character's who inhabited the place, their personalities and the back story of how this place once was.

As much as it's another in your face story telling device the main atmosphere is built by the the environment itself and not animated clip on the TV.

Again as this TV clip is a more complex piece of story telling that involves characters animations and voice acting it is beyond the scale and scope that i am aiming to achieve in my environments.

This next screenshot involves the chair that Dr. Langstrom transformed into the Man Bat as evidenced in the video but without the video it still gives some clues and context as to what occurred in this lab and it's focus. Evidently quite sinister with a patients chair equipped with strange chemical containers and tubes.

The equipment is less than pristine and the residue of chemicals in the pipes itself asks questions of a failed experiment.