Arkham Asylum, True Crime Sequels, Green Day: Rock Band Announced at VGAs

Along with the many awards dished out during the Spike television network's 2009 Video Game Awards was a raft of new game announcements including sequels to Rocksteady Studios' Batman: Arkham Asylum and Activision's True Crime series, as well as a Green Day-specific Rock Band game. Publisher Warner Bros. didn't name the new Batman game, but did set up a teaser at the URL arkamhasmoved.com. The game will again be developed by London-based Rocksteady Studios, which was honored with the Studio of the Year award during the Video Game Awards proceedings. Eidos, which handled publishing for the first game, won't be involved this time around, as IP owner Warner Bros. is taking those duties in-house. Early reports suggest voice actors Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill will reprise their roles as Batman and The Joker. Platforms were not listed, but the first game shipped on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. The new True Crime game, which seems to have been given the fashionable sans-subtitle naming convention of modern franchise reboots, is a successor to Luxoflux's open-world action games True Crime: Streets of L.A. and True Crime: New York. Set in Hong Kong and intended to be styled like a "true Hong Kong action flick," the game is being developed not by the series' creator but by Vancouver-based United Front Games, which is also currently working on ModNation Racers for Sony. True Crime is set to ship next year for Xbox 360, PC, and PlayStation 3. Harmonix Music Systems' Green Day: Rock Band is the second Rock Band game after Rock Band: The Beatles to give a band higher billing than the game franchise. But while the game is a standalone title, unlike The Beatles it will allow players to integrate all of its tracks into copies of Rock Band or Rock Band 2. The game is being developed for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii.