Rocksteady’s New Batman Game is Expanding With Advanced AI, Melee Combat, and Unreal Engine 5

Rocksteady’s upcoming Batman game is becoming increasingly well known, even though the studio still hasn't officially revealed the project. We still don't have its final title, and it isn't clear whether the project is technically another Batman: Arkham game or something closer to a reboot. 

The latest information is particularly revealing because Rocksteady appears to be hiring across several areas that were central to its earlier games. The studio is currently searching for people working on combat, enemy AI, NPC behavior, world design, lighting, and other parts of the game's presentation. 

Bloomberg's Jason Schreier previously reported that Rocksteady was developing a new single-player Batman title. 

Since then, the studio has continued staffing up for the project, with newer recruitment listings providing clues about its gameplay and visual direction. For anyone familiar with Rocksteady's history, the most interesting part is that many of these positions point back toward the kind of systems that made the Arkham games so successful.

That is a major change from where Rocksteady has been recently. After Batman: Arkham Asylum, Batman: Arkham City, and Batman: Arkham Knight established the studio as one of the biggest names in superhero games, it spent years working on Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. 

Warner Bros. Games has since been restructuring its strategy around the franchises it believes can deliver stronger results. Batman is naturally one of those properties, alongside Harry Potter, Mortal Kombat, and Game of Thrones. 

The newest hiring information makes that shift even more interesting. Rocksteady is currently looking for a senior gameplay programmer focused on realistic combat, with the position covering core gameplay systems, including combat and enemy AI. 

Rocksteady is also hiring another senior gameplay programmer specifically focused on NPCs and AI. Having separate positions dedicated to combat and NPC behavior suggests that both areas are receiving significant attention during development.

The studio says the developer will coordinate combat-related and navigation-related NPC behaviors to create emergent gameplay that gives players freedom and choice. 

That wording is particularly important for a Batman game because it suggests enemies won't simply exist as targets waiting for Batman to attack. Instead, Rocksteady appears interested in how enemies move, fight, navigate their surroundings, and respond to changing situations.

This approach also fits closely with what made the Arkham games' predator encounters so memorable. In those sections, taking down one enemy could immediately change how the others behaved, especially when someone discovered the missing guard or realized Batman was nearby. 

Now, imagine that basic concept being rebuilt with significantly more advanced NPC behavior. Enemies could potentially coordinate their movements, respond more intelligently to Batman's position, search environments more naturally, and react to your actions without following exactly the same sequence every time. 

That specific implementation is still speculation, but the important part is that Rocksteady is explicitly looking for developers who can create emergent combat and navigation behavior that provides players more freedom.

The combat-focused position is just as notable because it suggests the project is leaning heavily back toward melee action. An earlier Rocksteady game director listing asked for experience with third-person action games, melee brawlers, and open-world traversal games. 

If you're familiar with Rocksteady's previous work, the direction makes sense. 

The studio has spent years developing third-person melee combat and open-world traversal systems, and the Arkham games remain its defining work. The current recruitment material suggests Rocksteady is looking back at those strengths while trying to build something that feels like a modern evolution instead of simply recreating an older Batman game.

Rocksteady's original system changed superhero combat by allowing Batman to move smoothly between multiple enemies, counter attacks from different directions, use gadgets during combos, break weapons, perform takedowns, and control an entire room without making the experience feel like a traditional one-on-one fighting game.

The problem is that the basic FreeFlow concept is now more than 15 years old. A new Batman game can't simply bring back the same mechanics and expect them to feel entirely new. Players have already seen the formula refined across multiple games, so Rocksteady will need to introduce meaningful changes if it wants the combat to feel fresh. 

If Rocksteady is building another combat system based on the philosophy of its previous games, the likely goal would be to preserve the accessibility and fluidity while making the actual combat feel more physical and responsive.

That could mean more detailed contact between Batman and enemies, stronger hit reactions, more situational animations, smoother transitions between attacks, and opponents that behave more like a coordinated group rather than individual targets. 

The job listings don't confirm these specific features, so they shouldn't be treated as confirmed mechanics, but the combination of dedicated combat programming and dedicated enemy AI development suggests the relationship between Batman and his opponents is receiving serious attention.

Rocksteady's visual direction is also starting to become clearer. 

So expect Cyberpunk 2 to continue growing substantially as production continues. There’s still a long way to go before CDPR can really show off the game, but the latest numbers from the team, recruitment listings, technical work, and location details are giving you a much clearer picture of the studio’s intent. 

Looking back at the Arkham games, that combination sounds very familiar. For instance, Arkham Knight used realistic materials, rain, lighting, and character designs, but Gotham itself was highly exaggerated. Its giant Gothic buildings, industrial towers, neon lights, statues, gargoyles, and massive structures made it feel like a comic book world, not just an ordinary modern city.

That balance helped the Arkham games maintain a distinctive visual identity even as their technology aged. So when Rocksteady says it wants to balance realism with stylization in its lighting, it could be a sign that the new Batman game will continue that philosophy. 

You could end up with a technically more realistic Gotham while still keeping the exaggerated architecture and visual elements that make the setting immediately recognizable as Batman's world. That would allow Rocksteady to make the city feel more alive and modern without losing the dark, larger-than-life atmosphere that has always defined Gotham.

The technology behind the game is also evolving significantly. The new Batman project is reportedly being developed using Unreal Engine 5, and an earlier Rocksteady recruitment listing for its unannounced project mentioned a senior core engine programmer working with low-level UE5 systems. 

Rocksteady pushed Unreal Engine 3 remarkably far with Arkham Knight, particularly considering how impressive the game still looks today. The new project will give the studio access to much newer rendering technology, more detailed environments, modern lighting systems, and substantially more advanced hardware than it had when developing the Arkham games.

That could give Rocksteady the opportunity to make Gotham significantly denser and more detailed. 

Combined with Unreal Engine 5, modern lighting, more sophisticated environments, and potentially much more advanced NPC behavior, the studio has the tools to create a Batman world that feels familiar without simply copying its previous games.

There is still plenty that remains unknown. Rocksteady hasn't officially revealed the game's title, its story, its setting, its release date, or whether it will be directly connected to the Arkham continuity. The studio also hasn't confirmed exactly how its new combat, AI, traversal, or visual systems will work in the finished game.

Still, the hiring information is becoming difficult to ignore. Rocksteady is once again building teams around melee combat, enemy AI, NPC behavior, open-world traversal, and cinematic presentation, while reportedly working on a single-player Batman game using Unreal Engine 5. 

The biggest question surrounding the project is therefore not whether it will contain some Arkham DNA. 

Rocksteady's current recruitment strongly suggests that it will. The more compelling part is how far the studio plans to evolve those ideas after more than a decade of advances in hardware, animation, AI, and game technology.

If Rocksteady can take the fluid melee combat and stealth encounters that defined the Arkham series and rebuild them around smarter enemies, more reactive environments, modern animation, and a more technically advanced Gotham, the new Batman game could feel like a genuine next step rather than another return to an old formula. 

For now, the project remains officially unannounced, but the growing number of development clues is making it increasingly difficult for Rocksteady to keep its next Batman game hidden. With more details continuing to emerge through job listings and reports, an official reveal could eventually become the only way for the studio to control the conversation around the project.