Sefton Hill and Jamie Walker, the masterminds behind the epic Batman Arkham trilogy, are cooking up something at their brand new studio, Hundred Star, which was founded just last year.
Rocksteady is known for bringing Batman to life with fluid combat, amazing art direction, and iconic villains from Batman’s Rogue Gallery. They singlehandedly revolutionized superhero games with their high-quality Batman games and paved the way for other studios to do the same in the superhero genre.
The Rocksteady Co-founders Created a New Studio in 2023
In 2022, Hill and Walker bid farewell to Rocksteady to start fresh, and now they’ve teamed up with Xbox to create their next big AAA action game. Their new studio has struck a deal with Xbox Game Studios to craft a high-quality, single-player, action-adventure experience using Unreal 5. While details are scarce, we know it’s in the works, though we might be waiting for a long time for it to be released.
According to eXputer, the deal has been completed, and the new studio is ready to kickstart development. As for exclusivity, it’s anyone’s guess: be an exclusive, or come to PS5 either at launch or later on down the line. This will depend on their strategy at that time.
Based in the UK, the studio has a team of 100 game enthusiasts, and they’re all in on crafting AAA experiences. Their upcoming title is a single-player adventure built in Unreal Engine 5. Xbox’s The Coalition studios are known as the experts of Unreal Engine and have recently helped Ninja Theory on Hellblade 2 and Obsidian on Avowed. They could potentially also assist the brand-new studio in making the most out of the engine.
After wrapping up Arkham Knight in 2015, the studio took a detour with Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, a third-person looter shooter set in the DC universe. The game was released earlier this year to negative criticism and fan reception, with WB calling the game a commercial failure.
Rocksteady’s Latest Game Didn’t Meet Critical or Commercial Expectations that The Batman Arkham Games Did
While their recent stint with Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League didn’t hit the mark (they also left the studio two years before development ended), Hill and Walker have a solid track record in crafting immersive single-player adventures. Hill, in particular, has directed their greatest hits, like Arkham Asylum and Arkham City.
As for Kill the Justice League, the core gameplay loop of battling through generic missions to progress the story felt repetitive and uninspired. Critics noted a lack of variety in objectives and enemy encounters. The looter-shooter elements felt grindy, seemed tacked on and didn’t meaningfully enhance the gameplay experience at all.
The open world felt empty and lacked the interactivity or interesting side activities found in other open-world games, especially the Arkham games. While the premise of facing off against corrupted Justice League members was intriguing at first, the story itself wasn’t fleshed out enough, leaving players wanting more depth and character development.
What type of game do you hope to see from the newly formed studio? Let us know in the comments below.
