Batman from Saints Row creators. The game that was built on the ashes of a project buried by GTA 3
Batman had no luck with video games for a long time. Before his bad streak was reversed by the Rocksteady Studios team, other teams tried to do the trick. One of them was Volition Inc., which was working on its own installment of Batman's adventures.
The release of Grand Theft Auto III, which took place in 2001, shook the entire video game industry to its core. The game showed the world what a gangster story can look like, as well as how a sandbox should present itself in the 21st century.
The huge success of GTA 3 led to many developers creating similar projects, but eventually deciding not to continue their development. The reason for this situation was the fear of comparisons with the creation of Rockstar Games, with which they were unable to engage in an equal fight.
Such fate befell Volition Inc. studio, which once worked on a game about the criminal underworld titled Underground. It might seem like it laid the groundwork for the Saints Row series, which managed to find its place in the market, but that's not the case at all. After canceling this project, the developers decided to give it a new look and turn it into a Batman adventure.
Batman instead of a gangster
Unlike GTA 3, which emphasizes an open world and interacting with independent characters, as well as the ability to steal any car, Underground was supposed to focus on organizing heists and going stealthily, as well as using futuristic gadgets. During the game, we were to watch the action from a third-person perspective, and the gameplay would be more reminiscent of Grand Theft Auto. You can see for yourself by watching the video below, which shows Underground in action (from 37:01).
Ultimately, however, it was decided that the game would be labeled a "GTA 3 clone," which led to its cancellation. As GamesRadar reminds, the discussed project was not completely buried, but gained a new life. All they had to do was change the main character, swap out his gadgets, maybe spruce up the environment a bit, and voila – they had a ready-made Batman game concept.
Almost like Splinter Cell
The new iteration of this project was created in 2003. Although the video material available online showing it in action isn't impressive in of quality, it still gives us an idea of what we could expect from Batman by Volition. So, we would get a stealth action game that lets us sneak around, take out enemies from surprise, hack security systems, and use various gadgets.
Hacking would involve arranging paths leading from point A to point B (we would have a limited number of elements to make them up), and the list of gadgets would be topped by binoculars (allowing us to examine locations from a safe distance) and a rope with a hook (enabling us to swing over abysses, overcome distances in the air, and safely descend from great heights). Of course, there would also be a cape allowing Batman to glide, and batarangs that allow him to eliminate targets from a safe distance.
Even though Batman from Volition was supposed to put stealth in the first place, we could also engage in open combat. Nevertheless, the version that we can see in action in the video below was far from finished, which is why the latter was implemented in it only in a rudimentary form.
What happened next?
The editor of GamesRadar says that the tech demo from Volition Inc. for PS2 looks more like an early version of Batman Begins on PlayStation 2. Nonetheless, if Volition had the chance to complete this project, we might have received a title incomparably better than Christopher Nolan's film adaptation.
Unfortunately, Volition never got such a chance. Fortunately, the team that gained recognition among players with games like Red Faction, got to work on their own version of the GTA series, which turned out to be a real hit for them.
Meanwhile, fans of the superhero had to wait until 2009 for a real hit with Batman in the lead role, when the bestselling game Gotham by Gaslight was also being created, however, this project shared the fate of the work described here at an even earlier stage of development.
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